SOCIALISM 


SOME  UNINVITED  MESSAGES 
BY  W.  J.  GHE.NT4«*j* 


x^n'h   'n-  n    n    n    n'   n     n    n-  n  rn    n    n"'i\^ 


REESE  LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 
Class 


ir-v-ru-ir-v-ii-ir-u-u-u-ir-ur-M-i 


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SOCIALISM    AND     SUCCESS 
SOME    UNINVITED    MESSAGES 


By  the  Same  Author 


OUR  BENEVOLENT  FEUDALISM 
MASS  AND  CLASS 


Socialism  and 

SUCCESS^m?-« 

SOME    UNINVITED    MESSAGES 


By 

W.  J.  Ghent 


NEW  YORK 

JOHN  LANE   COMPANY 
MCMX 


Copyright,  1910,  by 
John  Lane  Company 


*£JSSj2 


H$ 


PUBLISHERS  PRINTING  COMPANY    NEW  YORK 


PREFACE 

A  considerable  part  of  the  substance  of 
the  following  pages  has  been  published  in 
periodicals.  But  excepting  the  "  Retainers  " 
chapter  and  the  greater  part  of  the  "Re- 
formers" chapter,  the  essays  have  been 
entirely  recast  and  rewritten.  Acknowl- 
edgment is  due  Success  and  The  Independ- 
ent for  permission  to  reprint  parts  of  "To 
the  Seekers  of  Success";  to  The  Independ- 
ent for  permission  to  reprint  "To  the  Re- 
tainers," and  to  the  Journal  of  the  Amer- 
ican Social  Science  Association  (1907)  for 
like  permission  regarding  the  main  part 
of  "  To  the  Reformers."  "  To  Some  Social- 
ists" is  rewritten  from  a  number  of  con- 
troversial  articles   that   have   appeared   in 

[5] 


214910 


PREFACE 

The  Worker  (New  York)  and  the  New  York 
Daily  Call  The  basis  of  "To  Mr.  John 
Smith,  Workingman,"  is  a  pamphlet  printed 
and  circulated  by  the  Socialist  party  of 
New  York  City  some  four  years  ago.  "  To 
the  Skeptics  and  Doubters"  has  not  before 
been  printed. 

W.  J.  G. 

New  York  City,  September  28,  1910. 


[6] 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 


[7] 


PAGE 


I.  To  the  Seekers  of  Success         ...      9 
II.  To  the  Reformers 45 

III.  To  the  Retainers         .        .        .        .        .96 

IV.  To  Some  Socialists 129 

V.  To  Mr.  John  Smith,  Workingman      .        .  177 

VI.  To  the  Skeptics  and  Doubters  .        .  207 


SOCIALISM 
AND  SUCCESS 

CHAPTER  I 

TO  THE   SEEKERS  OF  SUCCESS 

You  hunt  and  strive  for  success.  You 
that  are  religious  pray  for  it,  and  you  that 
are,  unreligious  woo  it  and  entreat  it  with 
a  devotion  that  transcends  the  fervency  of 
prayer.  The  teachers  instruct  you,  the 
editors  urge  you,  even  the  preachers  exhort 
you,  to  go  forward  and  win.  They  tell 
you  not  only  that  you  should  win,  but  that 
you  can  win.  They  tell  you  that  no  matter 
how  fierce  the  strife,  no  matter  what  ob- 
stacles front  you,  no  matter  how  many 
suitors  throng  the  gates,  you  can,  through 
courage  and  persistence  and  fortitude  and 

[9] 


SOCIALISM   AND  SUCCESS 

abstinence  and  thrift,  attain  the  goal. 
Some  of  them  tell  you  that  you  can  attain 
it  by  merely  thinking  it,  provided  only  that 
you  think  hard  enough  and  directly  enough 
and  constantly  enough;  that  thoughts  are 
material  things,  and  that  the  flower-like 
idea  of  success,  well  cultivated,  brings  of 
itself  the  fruit  of  realization.  Many  roads 
lead  to  the  goal.  There  is  room  at  the  top 
for  everybody.  Make  haste,  rest  not,  sleep 
not;  but  like  a  star  in  its  course  speed  on- 
ward, and  the  victory  is  yours. 

And  what  is  it  that  the  exhorters  mean  by 
success?  One  and  all,  this  is  what  they 
mean :  the  attainment,  or  the  state  of  attain- 
ment, of  high  place  and  rich  rewards.  No 
definition  less  material  of  aim  or  less  opulent 
of  promise  would  be  thought  by  the  instruc- 
tors of  the  multitude  to  be  worth  while;  nor, 
indeed,  would  any  other  satisfy  the  common 
desire  or  the  common  understanding.  This 
is  an  age  of  material  achievements,  and  the 
meaning  of  the  word  necessarily  takes  on 
the  form  and  pressure  of  the  age. 

Never  was  the  counsel  to  win  success  so 

[10] 


TO  THE  SEEKERS  OF  SUCCESS 

loud-voiced  and  so  insistent  as  now.  Never 
was  there  such  a  multitude  of  counselors. 
The  pursuit  of  success  has  been  transformed 
into  a  sort  of  religion,  and  a  horde  of  priests 
and  oracles  interpret  its  dogmas  and  dis- 
seminate its  practical  precepts.  They  tell 
you  what  things  to  do  and  what  not  to  do. 
They  tell  you  how  to  win  the  smile  of  the 
Success  god  when  he  is  indulgent;  how  to 
gain  his  attention  when  he  is  listless  or 
indifferent;  how  to  propitiate  his  anger  when 
he  frowns.  The  press  pours  forth  a  stream 
of  volumes,  revealing  to  you  the  hidden  lore. 
They  do  not  differ  in  degree  greatly  from  the 
"past  performance"  sheets  of  the  racing  ex- 
perts, or  the  dream-books  from  which  our 
Ethiopian  brothers  learn  how  to  invest  in  lot- 
tery or  policy,  or  from  those  writings  so  deft- 
ly blending  piety  and  Mammonism  which 
fascinate  the  Christian  Scientists.  They  in- 
terpret for  you  the  signs,  the  portents,  the 
mystic  meanings  of  things,  and  they  furnish 
you  with  the  approved  litanies  and  forms 
of  service.  No  matter  who  or  what  you  are, 
salvation  is  within  your  reach.  The  Suc- 
[n] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

cess  god  is  merciful.     You  can,  by  easily 
learned  rites  and  practices, 

"Break  your  birth's  invidious  bar, 
And  breast  the  blows  of  circumstance," 

wresting  from  a  reluctant  world  the  crown 
of  triumph. 

Under  this  incessant  goad  you  strive  and 
hasten,  though  often  with  drooping  spirits 
and  flagging  strength.  You  seek  to  trip 
or  to  overbear  those  nearest  you,  that  by 
eliminating  your  closest  competitors  you 
may  multiply  your  chances.  By  all  means 
which  the  law  permits,  and  by  many  which 
it  does  not,  you  bear  your  part  in  the  inter- 
minable struggle.  Occasionally,  some  rebel- 
lious spirit,  separating  himself  from  the 
throng,  and  pausing  by  the  roadside  to 
watch  the  mad  scramble,  asks  himself, 
"What  is  the  use  of  all  this?  What,  at 
best,  are  my  real  chances  ?  Is  this,  in  any 
event,  the  rightful  activity  of  mankind, 
and  is  the  goal  which  it  seeks  a  reality  or  a 
delusion?"  Ordinarily,  he  has  no  answer; 
or  if  he  has,  it  is  profitless,  for  the  sound 

[12] 


TO  THE  SEEKERS  OF  SUCCESS 

of  the  tumult  and  the  hope  of  victory  impel 
him  to  engage  again  in  the  great  battle. 

You  may  have  noted  that  the  priests 
and  oracles  of  success  are  not  invariably 
examples  of  the  efficacy  of  their  own  pre- 
cepts. Though  some  of  them  go  clothed 
in  splendor,  the  greater  number  seem  still 
to  be  waiting  the  fulfillment  of  their  prayers 
and  the  reward  of  their  devotional  practices. 
You  may  have  noted  that  the  greater  num- 
ber of  the  followers  seem  also  to  have 
halted  this  side  the  earthly  paradise.  Effort 
there  has  been — aspiration  and  striving, 
the  keeping  of  faith,  the  rigid  observance  of 
revealed  precepts.  Who  is  there  that  can- 
not picture  the  tragedy  of  the  thousands 
of  men  and  women,  of  boys  and  girls,  who 
have  toiled  and  dreamed  and  dared,  who 
have  renounced  leisure  and  peace  and 
pleasure  and  honor,  in  their  devotion  to  the 
god  of  Success?  They  have  failed,  most 
of  them;  they  have  found  circumstances 
so  formidable  that  neither  an  ardent  wish- 
ing them  away  nor  an  active  battling  against 
them  has  sensibly  cleared  the  pathway.     All 

[13] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

the  heroic  effort  of  these  aspiring  beings 
has  been  expended  on  a  vain  quest.  They 
are  to-day,  most  of  them,  where  they  were 
when  they  started.  The  guide-books  have 
been  conned,  the  directions  have  been  fol- 
lowed, the  seekers  have  wearily  trudged  and 
striven  along  the  indicated  way.  They 
have  found  it  to  be  something  else  than  a 
highway.  Toll-places  it  has,  where  the 
toll  of  blood  and  tears  and  hopes  and  ethical 
principles  is  remorselessly  taken  up;  but  it 
has  turned  out  to  be  not  a  turnpike,  but 
an  elongated  treadmill,  where  every  footing 
returns  to  its  appointed  place. 

Perhaps  the  cult  of  success  is  yet  too  new 
and  nebulous  to  justify  us  in  expecting  so 
much  from  it;  perhaps  its  creed  has  yet 
to  be  rounded  out  and  made  a  coherent 
whole;  perhaps  some  of  its  precepts  need 
revision,  or  at  least  adjustment  to  time  and 
circumstance;  perhaps  its  mahatmas  and 
yogis  are  of  varying  degrees  of  adeptness 
and  cannot  with  equal  skill  point  the  way 
and  the  manner;  or  perhaps  its  followers 
have  dwelt  too  strongly  upon  the  letter  of 

[14] 


TO  THE  SEEKERS   OF  SUCCESS 

the  law  rather  than  upon  its  spirit,  and  have 
thus  failed  in  discipleship.  Somewhere 
there  is  fault.  The  word  of  promise  is 
broken  to  our  ear  as  well  as  to  our  hope. 
What  is  it  that  the  oracles  of  success 
specifically  tell  you?  It  would  take  some- 
thing more  than  a  five-foot  shelf  to  contain 
all  the  recent  volumes  dedicated  to  the  pur- 
pose of  aiding  you  in  breasting  the  blows 
of  circumstance  and  in  breaking  the  invid- 
ious bar  of  your  birth.  Let  us  begin  with 
that  fountain-head  of  the  success  religion — 
that  "innocent  corrupter  of  youth,"  Dr. 
Orison  Swett  Marden.  There  is  something 
about  that  name  which  suggests  the  prayer- 
ful attitude  of  the  seeker  of  success — some- 
thing which  suggests  the  morning  offertory 
of  the  devotee  to  the  opulent  god.  And 
what  the  name  suggests  his  volumes  reveal. 
The  deity  who  could  withstand  the  de- 
votional entreaty,  or  betray  the  trustfulness, 
or  disdain  the  fervent  piety  based  upon  the 
sense  of  favors  to  come,  that  everywhere 
wells  up  in  these  pages,  would  deserve  to  be 
ranked  with  the  malignant  gods  of  some 

[15] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

cannibal  tribe.  Take  such  a  volume  as 
Peace,  Power  and  Plenty.  You  are  told 
therein  that  poverty  is  unnecessary,  that 
the  creator  did  not  intend  it;  that  "there 
is  no  providence  which  keeps  a  man  in 
poverty,  or  in  painful  or  distressing  cir- 
cumstances." You  are  told  that  "poverty 
itself  is  not  so  bad  as  the  poverty  thought. 
It  is  the  conviction  that  we  are  poor  and 
must  remain  so  that  is  fatal."  You  are 
told  that  "if  we  can  conquer  inward  pov- 
erty, we  can  soon  conquer  poverty  of  out- 
ward things,  for,  when  we  change  the  mental 
attitude,  the  physical  changes  to  corre- 
spond." 

The  economic  framework  of  society,  the 
necessary  divisions  of  labor,  the  enormous 
numerical  preponderance  (inevitable  under 
the  present  system)  of  hard  and  ill-paid 
tasks,  the  mathematical  impossibility  that 
any  considerable  number  of  persons  should 
escape  therefrom — all  this  is  serenely  waved 
aside.  Defects  in  the  situation  are  admitted 
— great  obstacles  to  preferment  and  dis- 
tinction, but  yet  nothing  that  need  greatly 

[16] 


TO  THE  SEEKERS   OF  SUCCESS 

trouble  the  strong  of  soul  and  the  resolved 
of  heart.     Listen: 

"  I  do  not  overlook  the  heartless,  grinding, 
grasping  practices  of  many  of  the  rich,  or 
the  unfair  and  cruel  conditions  brought 
about  by  unscrupulous  political  and  finan- 
cial schemers;  but  I  wish  to  show  the  poor 
man  that,  notwithstanding  all  these  things, 
multitudes  of  poor  people  do  rise  above 
their  iron  environment,  and  that  there  is 
hope  for  him.  The  mere  fact  that  so  many 
continue  to  rise,  year  after  year,  out  of  just 
such  conditions  as  you  may  think  are  fatal 
to  your  advancement,  ought  to  convince 
you  that  you  also  can  conquer  your  environ- 
ment." 

So  that,  no  matter  whether  you  are  a 
McKees  Rocks  mill-worker  or  a  South 
Carolina  factory  operative,  you  can  rise. 
"All  our  limitations,"  you  are  told,  "are 
in  our  own  minds.  .  .  .  We  starve  ourselves 
in  the  midst  of  plenty,  because  of  our  strang- 
ling thought.  The  opulent  life  stands  ready 
to  take  us  into  its  completeness,  but  our 
ignorance  cuts  us  off."  Then  comes  the 
individual  counsel: 

2  [17] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

"If  you  want  success,  abundance,  you 
must  think  success,  you  must  think  abun- 
dance. Stoutly  deny  the  power  of  adversity 
or  poverty  to  keep  you  down.  Constantly 
assert  your  superiority  to  your  environment. 
Believe  that  you  are  to  dominate  your  sur- 
roundings, that  you  are  the  master  and  not 
the  slave  of  circumstances.  Resolve  with 
all  the  vigor  you  can  muster  that  since  there 
are  plenty  of  good  things  in  the  world  for 
everybody,  you  are  going  to  have  your  share, 
without  injuring  anybody  else  or  keeping 
others  back.  It  was  intended  that  you 
should  have  a  competence,  an  abundance. 
It  is  your  birthright.  You  are  success 
organized,  and  constructed  for  happiness, 
and  you  should  resolve  to  reach  your  divine 
destiny." 

There  are  other  oracles  than  Dr.  Marden. 
Of  course  all  the  oracles  do  not  tell  you  the 
same  things.  The  virtues  commended,  the 
vices  condemned,  the  methods  approved  by 
one,  may  be  slighted  by  the  next,  and  an 
emphasis  put  upon  other  factors.  But  one 
and  all,  they  neglect  to  tell  you  the  mathe- 
matical and  logical  chances.  Like  the 
agents  of  a  great  lottery,  they  appeal  to 
[18]  * 


TO  THE  SEEKERS   OF  SUCCESS 

your  gambling  instinct:  they  tell  you  of 
the  big  winning  made  by  Brown  or  Sniggle- 
fritz,  and  they  inspire  you  to  believe  that 
what  these  men  have  done  you  can  duplicate. 
They  are  not  even  as  fair  as  the  lottery  agent; 
they  do  not  tell  you  how  many  grand  prizes 
there  are,  and  how  many  secondary  prizes 
and  tertiary  prizes,  and  so  on  down  to  the 
least  reward  that  can  possibly  be  considered 
a  prize.  Nor  do  they  tell  you  the  number 
of  blanks.  They  inflame  your  imagination 
till  it  sees  the  whole  world  richly  hung  with 
prizes,  and  you  a  certain  winner.  Under 
even  favored  conditions  of  birth  and  train- 
ing, with  innate  energy,  native  capacity 
and  agreeableness  of  personality,  there  may 
still  be  enormous  chances  against  you;  in 
certain  states  and  conditions  of  life  not  one 
of  you  in  ten  thousand  can  reasonably 
hope  for  a  prize.  Yet  you  suffer  the 
Arabian  Nights  tale  of  fabulous  riches  within 
attainable  grasp  to  possess  you  and  to  con- 
trol your  thoughts  and  actions. 

They  differ  on  many  points,  these  oracles. 
But  one  and  all  they  declare,  with  tireless 

[19] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

iteration,  that  the  chances  of  success  are 
greater  than  ever  before.  Like  most  orac- 
ular utterances,  the  declaration  is  sus- 
ceptible of  a  number  of  meanings.  Do  they 
mean,  for  instance,  that  there  are  more 
prizes  to  be  won;  or  that  with  fewer  prizes, 
or  relatively  the  same  number  of  prizes 
as  before,  some  are  richer  prizes?  Either 
or  both  propositions  are  true,  according  to 
the  inspired  oracle  who  happens  to  reply 
to  you;  and  he  will  be  echoed  by  any  num- 
ber of  those  successful  ones  who  have  at- 
tained the  earthly  paradise.  Yet  despite 
the  oracles  and  the  winners,  there  are  grave 
reasons  for  doubt.  That  the  numerical 
chances  of  success  have  increased  is  improb- 
able, almost  impossible;  and  though  among 
the  .exceptional  prizes  some  are  richer, 
their  number  is  smaller  than  the  oracles 
assert  or  the  devotees  believe. 

The  matter  of  numerical  chances  of  suc- 
cess is  really  one  of  statistics,  if  only  the 
statistics  could  be  had.  It  ought  to  be 
readily  ascertainable,  from  authenticated 
figures,  if  the  number  of  high  places,  with 

[20] 


TO  THE  SEEKERS  OF  SUCCESS 

rich  rewards  attached,  has  increased  in 
greater  ratio  than  the  proportion  and  num- 
ber of  subordinate  places.  Unfortunately, 
these  figures,  in  an  adequate  measure  of 
comprehensiveness  and  detail,  are  not  to  be 
had.  Our  government  statistics  are,  in 
some  respects,  a  blessing.  To  glean  and 
prepare  them  furnishes  work  for  a  great 
number  of  men,  and  diffuses  good  wages 
among  a  large  part  of  the  population.  But 
as  valuable  and  accurate  contributions  to 
the  sum  of  human  knowledge,  a  word  so 
favorable  can  not  invariably  be  said  of  them. 
Yet  occasionally  they  give  forth  gleams  of 
real  information,  and  from  these  one  may 
bring  light  to  bear  on  some  puzzling  prob- 
lem. The  census  figures  of  1900  on  gainful 
occupations  are  helpful — at  least,  such  of 
them  as  are  gathered  on  schedules  identical 
with  those  of  1890 — and  enable  us  roughly 
to  compare  the  proportion  of  chances.  If 
these  figures  indicate  anything,  it  is  that 
the  number  of  workers  and  aspirants  has 
increased,  along  with  a  great  increase  in 
the  number  of  subordinate  places,  and  that 

[21] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

the  number  of  richly  rewarded  places  has 
not  kept  the  pace. 

Despite  the  annual  paean  chanted  by 
Secretary  Wilson,  there  are  few  rich  prizes 
in  agriculture.  Even  if  there  were,  the 
chances  of  success  are  dwindling.  The 
independent  or  employing  farmer  increased 
by  seven  per  cent.,  but  the  farm  laborers  by 
twenty-three  per  cent.  There  are  of  course 
no  rich  prizes  in  domestic  and  personal 
service,  and  here  again  is  a  growth  in 
numbers.  As  for  the  professions,  a  liberal 
interpretation  of  the  word  success  might 
allow  some  few  instances  of  its  attainment. 
A  fortunate  corporation  lawyer,  a  popular 
historical  novelist,  a  "yellow"  journalist 
beating  the  drums  and  sounding  the  cymbals 
in  his  own  honor,  or  a  physician  attached  in 
personal  service  to  a  magnate,  might  each 
be  considered  as  dwelling  about  the  purlieus 
of  the  garden  of  success.  But  these  are  few 
indeed,  and  the  host  of  briefless  attorneys, 
jobless  journalists  and  "unavailable"  liter- 
ary persons — all  of  them  constantly  increas- 
ing in  numbers — bears  witness  to  the  fact 

[22] 


TO  THE  SEEKERS   OF  SUCCESS 

that  there  is  no  numerical  increase  in  the 
great  opportunities  in  the  professions. 

It  is  in  trade  and  transportation  that  you 
may  get  the  most  significant  figures  on  the 
numerical  chances.  The  increase  in  the 
number  of  mercantile  underlings  is,  in  some 
cases,  enormous.  Stenographers  and  type- 
writers have  increased  by  two  hundred  and 
thirty-six  per  cent.;  salesmen  and  sales- 
women, one  hundred  and  thirty-one  per 
cent. ;  packers,  shippers,  porters  and  helpers 
one  hundred  and  thirty  per  cent.;  book- 
keepers and  accountants,  sixty  per  cent.; 
messengers  and  errand  and  office  boys, 
forty  per  cent.  On  the  other  hand  whole- 
sale merchants  have  increased  by  thirty- 
six  per  cent.,  and  retail  merchants,  by 
nineteen  and  five-tenths  per  cent.  Those 
presumably  affluent  persons,  the  bankers 
and  brokers,  have  increased  one  hundred 
and  one  per  cent.;  but  since  nearly  all  of 
this  increase  is  of  money  and  stock  brokers, 
as  distinguished  from  commercial  brokers, 
and  since  it  includes  persons  from  every 
variety  of  the  transient,   "get-rich-quick" 

[23] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

and  other  unstable  concerns,  it  indicates 
little  more  than  the  current  rage  for  specula- 
tion and  the  eagerness  of  the  metropolitan 
sharpers  to  accommodate  a  Barnumized 
public.  The  figures  for  officials  of  banks 
and  companies  are  not  comparable  with 
those  of  1890,  owing  to  a  difference  in  the 
schedules.  As  given,  they  show  a  large 
increase;  but  a  proper  discount,  taken  on 
the  basis  of  fraudulent  and  parasitic  com- 
panies in  the  market,  would  sensibly  dimin- 
ish their  volume.  Whatever  the  foregoing 
figures  may  be  held  to  indicate  regarding 
"room  at  the  top,"  it  is  undeniable  that  they 
show  a  generous  and  growing  spaciousness 
of  room  at  the  bottom.  They  give  no 
warrant  whatever  for  the  promise  of  in- 
creased opportunities. 

Indeed,  this  lesson  is  exactly  what  one 
learns  in  looking  about  the  big  mercantile 
concerns.  Combination  has  proceeded  al- 
most steadily  since  1897;  and,  though  the 
growth  of  independent  companies  has,  to  a 
small  extent,  operated  as  an  offset,  the  con- 
sequence, as  a  whole,  has  been  a  lessening 

[24] 


TO  THE  SEEKERS  OF  SUCCESS 

of  the  number  of  secure  and  well-paid 
places.  The  future  American  Dickens, 
when  he  wants  material  for  a  story  that  in 
Francis  Bacon's  words  "comes  home  to 
men's  business  and  bosoms,"  may  profitably 
seek  out  some  of  the  individual  tragedies 
that  have  resulted  from  any  of  these  com- 
binations. One  instance  in  particular  is 
that  of  the  union  of  three  enormously  rich 
metropolitan  companies  in  one  of  the  textile 
branches  some  few  years  ago.  Day  after 
day,  month  after  month,  for  three  years, 
throughout  the  clerical  and  managerial 
forces  of  the  three  establishments,  discharges 
from  employment  were  steadily  made  until 
one  man  in  every  four  was  dismissed. 
These  places  have  never  been  restored,  and 
of  the  persons  discharged  not  one  in  fifty, 
it  is  estimated,  has  ever  succeeded  in  gaining 
an  equally  remunerative  place. 

Perhaps  to  the  petty  business  man  more 
than  to  any  other  is  success  a  vision  by  day 
and  a  dream  by  night.  It  is  only  the  excep- 
tional retailer  who  does  not  see  in  his  little 
store  the   potential   beginning   of  a   great 

[25] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

mercantile  house,  and  only  the  exceptional 
petty  manufacturer  who  does  not  regard 
himself  as  a  possible  captain  of  industry. 
Yet  every  month  and  every  day  the  great 
wheels  of  capitalism  move  onward  like  the 
car  of  Juggernaut.  The  little  businesses 
are  crushed,  and  an  added  wealth  and 
power  comes  to  the  few.  From  him  that 
hath  not  is  taken  away  even  the  little  that 
he  hath.  Yet  in  numbers,  the  oracles 
^  say,  the  little  businesses  persist.  So,  as  to 
numbers,  do  the  evanescent  bubbles  in  a 
mountain  stream  persist.  But  the  bubble 
of  a  moment  ago  is  no  more,  even  though 
its  place  has  been  taken  by  another.  The 
little  businesses  form  and  then  vanish.  The 
temptation  to  "go  into  business  for  oneself" 
is  always  alluring.  The  pains  and  drudgery 
of  wage-earning  labor,  the  subordination 
and  routine  of  salaried  labor,  are  a  known 
quantity;  and  so  is  the  yearly  recompense, 
at  least  in  any  trade  or  calling  where  employ- 
ment is  steady.  But  the  possible  revenues 
from  a  business  enterprise  are  unknown, 
and  the  imagination  runs  free  in  picturing 

[26] 


TO  THE  SEEKERS  OF  SUCCESS 

them.  So,  though  failure  and  liquidation 
and  bankruptcy  attend  the  attempt,  the 
horde  of  shopkeepers  and  petty  manufac- 
turers persists.  There  are  no  such  strivers 
for  success  as  these;  they  follow,  in  the 
main,  the  hallowed  precepts  of  the  oracles; 
and  yet  the  earthly  paradise  is  denied  all 
but  an  infinitesimal  few  of  them. 

There  is  then  the  promise  of  richer  re- 
wards for  the  few.  That  the  very  rich 
— the  gleaners  of  rent,  interest  and  profit 
— have  increased  in  numbers,  both  abso- 
lutely and  relatively,  seems  evident  from  the 
census  figures.  There  is  a  larger  annual 
harvest  from  the  labor  of  men's  hands  and 
the  planning  of  men's  brains;  and  there 
is  a  larger  body  of  claimants  for  the  surplus. 
That  one  result  of  combination  has  been  the 
creation  of  a  number  of  highly  paid  places 
is  not  to  be  doubted.  But  these  are  not 
many,  and  their  creation  has  but  coincided 
with  the  abolition  of  other  well-paid  places 
in  the  original  companies  that  have  entered 
into  combination.  Whether  the  salaries  of 
these  desirable  places  in  the  bosom  of  the 

[27] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

trusts  equal  the  salaries  formerly  paid  by 
the  original  companies  is  a  matter  for  dis- 
pute. In  one  corporation  they  will  be 
greater,  in  another  less,  and  the  average  no 
man  knows.  Outside  of  the  trusts  there 
are  still  highly  paid  places,  and  there  are 
still  opportunities  for  individual  initiative. 
But  there  is  one  fact  bearing  upon  this  phase 
of  the  subject  which  is  too  often  lost  sight 
of.  The  present-day  aspirant  for  success 
on  his  own  initiative  labors  amid  a  different 
host  of  circumstances  from  those  which 
surrounded  the  industrial  magnate  in  his 
earlier  days.  Through  the  assiduous — and, 
as  some  think,  pestilent — interference  of 
legislatures  and  Congress,  it  has  become 
impossible  to  do  some  of  the  things  which 
in  the  past  days  were  proper  and  even  emula- 
tory.  The  magnates  of  to-day  laid  the 
basis  of  their  fortunes  in  a  golden  age  when 
"liberty"  was  but  slightly  restricted — when 
a  man  could  do  what  he  willed  not  only  with 
his  own,  but  also  with  his  neighbor's.  The 
progress  of  civilization,  according  to  Huxley, 
has  been  attended  by  a  constant  setting  of 

[28] 


TO  THE  SEEKERS   OF  SUCCESS 

limits  to  the  fratricidal  struggle;  and  our 
legislators,  doubtless  impressed  with  the 
idea  that  civilization  here  in  America  has 
not  yet  reached  its  zenith,  have  contributed 
a  large  share  of  these  restrictions.  The 
sprightly  activities  directed  to  the  wiping 
out  of  competitors,  which  Mr.  Lloyd  re- 
counts in  his  Wealth  Against  Common- 
wealth as  usual  twenty  years  ago,  have 
had  their  day.  With  good  counsel,  large 
resources  and  a  friendly  or  financially  inter- 
ested judge,  the  aspirant  toward  an  indus- 
trial dukedom  may  yet,  at  certain  times 
and  in  favored  places,  repeat  some  of  the 
tactics  then  common.  But,  even  so,  there 
are  limits,  for  the  old  order  has  changed, 
yielding  place  to  a  new  one,  and  in  general 
he  must  conduct  his  campaign  according 
to  the  statutory  restrictions.  Even  to  the 
"arriving"  magnate,  therefore,  the  richer 
rewards  are  promised  in  vain.  Prizes  com- 
mensurate with  those  of  the  recent  past  are 
not  to  be  had. 

The  assumption  that  in  paid  service  supe- 
rior  intelligence  and    energy    win    greater 

[29] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

relative  reward  than  of  old  is  at  least  un- 
proved, and  is  for  many  reasons  doubtful. 
What  the  oracles  mean  by  this  is  that  a 
Napoleon  or  an  Alexander  of  industry  can, 
within  certain  limits,  set  his  own  price  for 
his  services.  But  in  industry,  as  well  as 
in  war  and  in  statecraft,  this  has  always 
been  so,  and  there  is  nothing  whatever  novel 
about  it.  Whether  it  will  continue  to  be 
so  in  the  near  future  cannot  be  said.  But 
no  generalizations  based  upon  such  extraor- 
dinary exceptions  will  serve  for  the  matter 
in  hand.  What  the  rapt  youths  clustering 
about  the  altar  rail  of  success  want  to  know 
is  whether  or  not  the  much-vaunted  "brains 
and  hustle,"  of  which  we  now  hear  so  much, 
are  more  richly  paid,  relative  to  the  results 
achieved,  than  of  old.  The  assurances  are 
many  and  positive;  but  they  are  based,  for 
the  most  part,  on  the  most  superficial  guess- 
work. The  monopolies,  though  benevolent, 
are  not  prodigal;  and  outside  the  monop- 
olies a  sharp  competition  still  reigns;  the 
wage-earners,  through  their  unions,  demand 
an    increased    share    of    the    returns;  the 

[30] 


TO  THE  SEEKERS   OF  SUCCESS 

leeches  of  rent,  interest  and  depreciation 
are  ever  at  work;  and  miscellaneous  ex- 
penses and  the  cost  of  material  (in  most 
cases)  are  rising.  Thus  the  keenest  and 
most  practical  intelligence  applied  to  an 
established  business  may  be  productive  only 
of  slight  savings  and  a  slight  increase  in 
sales.  Where  the  added  recompense  to 
genius  is  to  come  from  it  is  hard  to  deter- 
mine. With  the  exceptional  growth  of  a 
business,  genius  is  sometimes  increasingly 
rewarded,  but  the  increase  is  almost  cer- 
tainly incommensurate  with  the  results 
achieved. 

It  is  the  young  men,  say  the  oracles,  who 
have  all  the  chances.  There  is  small  doubt 
of  this,  and  it  may  be  conceded  at  once.  As 
Nature's  darling  is  the  strong,  so  Capital's 
darling  is  the  young.  The  combat  grows 
fiercer — on  the  part  of  the  independent 
companies  against  one  another,  and  on  the 
part  of  the  monopolies  against  society — 
and  only  the  young  can  bear  the  brunt  of 
the  struggle.  The  young  are  plastic  and 
tractable,  still  capable  of  an  adjustment  to 

[31] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

fit  their  surroundings.  In  them  can  be 
developed  just  that  extra  length  or  finer 
curve  of  beak  or  claw  by  which  to  gouge  or 
eviscerate  rivals,  whereas  the  talons  of  the 
old  have  been  dulled  and  worn  away. 
Whatever,  therefore,  the  future  holds,  is 
theirs.  The  middle-aged  and  the  old  are 
sent  to  the  rear,  while  the  youths  are  hurried 
to  the  front,  inspired  by  the  promise  of 
infinite  glories  in  a  finite  and  not  too  remote 
future. 

The  oracles,  it  has  already  been  said, 
always  neglect  to  tell  you  the  numerical 
chances.  They  do  not  deal  with  the  hard 
facts  of  life.  They  are  the  founders  of  a  new 
school  of  fiction — the  materialist  school.  Let 
us  examine  their  promises  on  the  basis  of  a 
single  industry  and  see  how  they  work  out. 
Let  us  take,  for  instance,  the  interstate 
railroads.  Of  the  1,458,244  employes  in 
the  United  States  (1908)  how  many  can 
hope  ever  to  be  numbered  among  the  5,767 
general  officers?  You  are  an  employe, 
we  shall  say;  and  in  mere  numbers  you 
have  about  one  chance  in  252  of  reaching 

[32] 


TO  THE  SEEKERS  OF  SUCCESS 

your  goal.  No  matter  how  efficient  you 
become,  no  matter  what  hours  you  give  to 
study  and  plan  and  fit  yourself  for  "higher" 
things,  it  is  not  likely  that  the  number  of 
general  officers  will  be  greatly  increased. 
If  you  and  all  of  your  fellows  became  the 
executive  equals  of  the  5,767  general  officers, 
there  would  still  be  places  for  only  one 
in  252  of  you.  Then,  too,  probably  only 
about  one-half  of  the  general  staff  come  up 
from  the  ranks — the  other  half  coming  from 
the  sons  and  nephews  and  retainers  of  rich 
and  influential  men — and  so  your  numerical 
chances  are  really  not  more  than  one  in 
500. 

But  the  proportion  of  mere  numbers  is 
not  enough.  There  are  other  factors  to 
consider.  In  many  of  the  branches  of  rail- 
road service  the  qualities  needed  for  ef- 
ficiency are  not  the  qualities  needed  in 
"higher"  places.  You  may  be  an  expert 
track-layer,  a  brave  and  skilful  locomotive 
engineer.  Your  expertness  in  these  lines 
fits  you  rather  for  continuance  in  your  pres- 
ent   work    than    for    translation    to    other 

3  [33] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

spheres,  and  you  will  find  your  special  ex- 
cellence a  bar  to  advancement.  Then,  too, 
there  are  casualties  to  account  for,  and 
thus  there  is  a  further  qualifying  of  the 
numerical  chances.  Suppose  you  are  a 
trainman.  Every  year  about  one  in  eight 
of  you  is  wounded;  about  one  in  133  is 
killed.  You  have  thus  a  much  better  chance 
of  achieving  wounds  or  death  than  of  achiev- 
ing success.  Even  if  you  happen  to  be  em- 
ployed in  some  of  the  safer  branches  of  the 
industry,  there  may  be  numberless  chances 
against  you.  You  may  have  had  to  begin 
work  as  a  boy  and  therefore  to  forego  an 
education.  Your  mother-tongue  may  not 
be  English,  and  that  fact  is  a  handicap  of 
no  mean  importance.  You  may  have  few 
friends  and  be  without  the  rare  faculty  of 
making  them.  Then,  too,  you  may  have 
ethical  scruples  against  taking  advantage 
of  men  and  occasions,  and  in  critical  times 
the  observance  of  these  scruples  will  block 
your  advancement.  The  oracles  cannot 
help  you;  the  guide-books  cannot  give  you 
light.     The  lure  of  success  may  draw  you, 

[34] 


TO  THE  SEEKERS   OF  SUCCESS 

but    you   will     ultimately    find   it   a   vain 
lure. 

Or  perhaps  you  are  not  a  railroad  em- 
ploye, but  a  factory  worker  in  a  mill  town. 
From  childhood  you  have  been  taught  to  do 
one  thing  only,  and  to  do  it  over  and  over 
again.  Perhaps  you  are  fortunate  above 
some  of  your  fellows  in  that  you  have  a 
"four-motion"  job  instead  of  a  monotonous 
"three-motion"  job.  A  right-hand  move- 
ment left,  a  left-hand  movement  right, 
both  hands  up  and  then  both  hands  down — 
and  this  over  and  over  again,  five  hours  in 
the  morning,  five  hours  in  the  afternoon, 
six  days  in  the  week,  four  and  a  fraction 
weeks  in  the  month,  and  whatever  number 
of  months  in  the  year  your  master  chooses 
to  employ  you.  Your  every  faculty  has 
been  hardened  about  this  one  task,  unfitting 
you  for  any  other.  Your  meager  earnings 
just  suffice  to  keep  you  and  your  dependents 
alive.  You  cannot  move  from  your  en- 
vironment. Your  life  and  the  life  of  others 
depends  upon  the  work-place  to  which  you 
are  attached.     What  other  thought  can  you 

[35] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

possibly  have  than  the  "poverty  thought  "  ? 
Would  it,  if  it  were  possible,  avail  you  aught 
to  have  any  other?  What  possible  mes- 
sage can  the  oracles  have  for  you?  What 
possible  degree  of  success  is  conceivably 
within  your  grasp  ? 

There  is  another  thing  the  oracles  neglect 
to  tell  you.  In  the  vast  and  complex  scheme 
of  things,  the  "lower"  places  are  just  as 
necessary  as  the  "higher"  places.  The 
1,452,477  railroad  men  other  than  general 
officers  are  not  employed  through  philan- 
thropy. They  are  not  employed  by  reason 
of  the  rich  man's  pleasure  in  paying  wages 
to  the  poor  man.  They  are  employed 
because,  upon  a  hard,  unsentimental,  cash 
basis,  it  takes  that  many  men  to  do  the 
work.  It  cannot  be  done  by  machinery  nor 
by  thought  transference.  It  must  be  done 
by  muscle  and  brain.  No  matter  how 
efficient  and  masterful  you  become,  these 
places  would  still  have  to  be  filled.  You 
never  heard,  did  you,  that  any  of  these 
places  went  begging?  No  matter  how 
many  men,  according  to  the  oracles,  have 

[36] 


TO  THE  SEEKERS  OF  SUCCESS 

scaled  the  walls  of  the  earthly  paradise, 
the  common  work  has  still  to  be  done,  and 
there  is  ever  an  eager  army  pleading  for 
the  chance  to  do  it.  How  shall  it  be  done 
if  all  listen  to  the  oracles  of  success  ? 

Again  the  rebellious  spirit  stops  by  the 
wayside  to  think  it  over  and  to  wonder  what 
it.  is  all  about.  "What  is  the  abiding 
result,"  he  may  ask,  "of  this  exhortation  to 
struggle,  and  of  all  this  tremendous  trumpet- 
ing of  success?"  The  result,  he  reflects, 
surely  cannot  be  efficiency,  for  the  efficient 
labor  for  the  joy  and  pride  of  their  work. 
It  can  have  no  kinship  with  the  social  feel- 
ings, for  he  that  concerns  himself  about 
sympathy,  fellowship  and  justice  has  given 
hostages  to  fortune  which  he  can  never 
ransom.  Nor  can  it  have  any  kinship  with 
ethics;  for,  indeed,  an  ardent  pursuit  of 
success  involves  an  almost  entire  avoidance 
of  ethical  precepts.  The  ethical  element 
rarely  or  never  enters  into  the  exhortations. 
"  Get  money ! "  "  Get  ahead ! "  and  "  Forge 
to  the  front ! "  are  the  slogans.  The  stirring 
words  of  a  popular  song, 

[37] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

"Swamp  'em,  swamp  'em, 
Get  the  wampum!" 

reflects  the  common  mind.  And  so  the 
frantic  devotees  wrestle  and  climb,  with 
small  thought  of  other  considerations;  and 
so,  too,  the  rebellious  spirit  by  the  wayside 
is  again  swept  oh  by  the  surging  tide. 

The  fault  is  not  that  of  the  individual, 
except  secondarily.  It  lies  in  the  inevitable 
stresses  and  impulsions  of  the  conflict  by 
man  against  man  for  the  means  of  life. 
In  such  a  conflict  the  common  ideal  must 
necessarily  be  one  of  triumph  over  one's 
fellow-man,  and  the  modes  of  warfare  must 
be  those  of  one's  rivals.  He  that  would 
live  among  armed  men  must  bear  arms. 
"The  rigid  chain  of  competition,"  writes 
Mr.  Otis  Kendall  Stuart  in  The  Independ- 
ent, "  literally  binds  him  [the  business  man] 
to  use  all  the  desperate  means  of  his  busi- 
ness rival,  .  .  .  the  same  refined  mendacity 
and  mountainous  exaggeration.  In  many 
lines  the  exaggeration  and  mendacity  are 
as  necessary  tools  of  trade  as  the  improved 
machinery    and    the    automatic   methods. 

[38] 


TO  THE  SEEKERS   OF  SUCCESS 

They  are  planned  with  consummate  art,  are 
perfectly  systematized,  and  might  easily  be 
classified  by  a  political  economist." 

No,  the  pursuit  of  material  success  solves 
nothing  in  this  world  worth  solving.  It 
is  a  cult  which  deceives  and  demoralizes 
and  ruins,  which  blinds  men  to  their  actual 
situation  in  life  and  which  evades  or  ignores 
the  real  solution  of  poverty.  Instead  of 
fostering  co-operation,  the  natural  tendency 
of  social  man,  it  foments  strife.  It  dooms 
the  multitudes  to  stumble  about  in  privation 
and  ignorance,  led  by  a  false  light  and  a 
vain  hope.  By  joining  hands  for  a  com- 
mon purpose,  you  might  achieve  a  material 
success  in  which  all  would  share — one  which 
would  be  the  enduring  basis  of  a  higher 
success,  a  success  of  the  social  instincts 
and  feelings,  a  success  of  moral  and  intel- 
lectual endeavor.  By  striving  for  individual 
material  gain,  you  but  wreck  your  own  and 
others'  opportunities. 

There  is  thus  another  success  than  that 
taught  by  the  oracles — a  success  often 
characterized  by  a  chain  of  apparent  defeats. 

[39] 


SOCIALISM  AND.  SUCCESS 

It  is  a  success  which  scorns  poverty;  or 
which,  though  sensible  of  its  blight  and 
pain,  accepts  it  unflinchingly  in  its  quest 
of  higher  things.  It  is  the  success  of  a 
Jesus,  a  Mazzini,  a  Marx.  It  is  the  success 
of  thousands  of  lesser  men  in  all  times, 
whose  deeds  are  unchronicled,  and  whose 
names,  long  forgotten,  can  never  be  resur- 
rected. It  is  the  success  which,  though 
generally  uncrowned  in  the  lifetime  of  the 
individual,  achieves  its  crown  in  the  social 
advancement  of  the  race.  Is  this  too  re- 
mote or  barren  a  reward  for  which  to  strive  ? 
But  barren  or  remote  as  it  may  seem  to 
the  being  nursed  in  the  environment  of 
fratricidal  strife  and  of  material  gain,  it 
bears  its  immediate  guerdon  to  the  individ- 
ual life.  There  is  a  luminous  passage  in 
Prof.  Karl  Hilty's  little  work  on  Happiness 
which  you  might  well  memorize  and  make 
a  part  of  you : 

"  One  of  our  own  contemporaries,  Thiers, 

a  man  who  had  in  high  degree  attained 

success,  and  who  at  certain  points  in  his 

life   pursued   it   with   excessive   zeal,    once 

[401 


TO  THE  SEEKERS  OF  SUCCESS 

made  this  striking  remark:  'Men  of  prin- 
ciple need  not  succeed.  Success  is  necessary 
only  to  schemers.'  In  other  words,  a  genu- 
ine victory  over  the  world  is  not  to  be 
achieved  through  that  kind  of  success  which 
the  French  call  succds,  and  which  for  many 
men  makes  the  end  of  effort.  He  who  plays 
the  game  of  ambition  may  as  well  abandon 
the  hope  of  peace  of  mind  or  of  peace  with 
others,  and  in  most  cases  he  must  forfeit 
outright  his  self-respect." 

Success,  then,  in  its  ordinary  meaning, 
in  the  meaning  of  the  oracles,  is  not  victory, 
either  over  the  world  or  over  yourself;  it 
is  too  often  defeat  and  impoverishment.  It 
is  the  sacrifice  of  what  is  best  in  man  for 
a  trumpery  prize.  Whether,  as  with  the 
overwhelming  mass  of  mankind,  by  whom 
the  goal  can  never  be  attained,  or  whether, 
as  with  the  few,  by  whom  it  is  attained  in 
some  measure,  the  rage  of  pursuit  inevitably 
means  the  hardening  of  the  social  feelings, 
the  extinguishment  of  the  spirit  of  brother- 
hood, the  clouding  and  darkening  of  the 
social  vision  by  which  a  people  live  and 
become  great.  It  obliterates  all  inward 
Ull 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

peace  and  sets  the  heart  and  faculties  at 
war  with  creatures  of  your  own  kind.  In 
its  fiercer  promptings  it  might,  rather  than 
physical  lust,  have  been  the  theme  of  the 
great  129th  sonnet  of  Shakespeare.  The 
lust  of  success 

"Is  perjured,  murderous,  bloody,  full  of  blame, 
Savage,  extreme,  rude,  cruel,  not  to  trust." 

It  is  as  a  swallowed  bait,  which  makes  the 
taker  mad — 

"Mad  in  pursuit,  and  in  possession  so: 
Had,  having,  and  in  quest  to  have,  extreme; 

A  bliss  in  proof,  and  proved  a  very  woe. 
Before,  a  joy  proposed;  behind,  a  dream." 

And  even  in  its  more  moderate  promptings 
it  differs  from  this  not  in  kind,  but  only  in 
degree. 

We  must  have  conflict,  say  the  Individual- 
ists, who  stand  as  the  philosophical  sponsors 
of  the  oracles  of  success.  We  must  have 
obstacles  to  war  against  in  order  to  bring 
out  and  develop  the  sturdy  virtues.  But 
the  estimable  qualities  which  the  Individ- 
ualists tell  us  are  developed  only  by  conflict 

[42] 


TO  THE  SEEKERS  OF  SUCCESS 

can  still  find  nurture  and  growth  even 
though  the  rage  of  success  be  calmed  and 
the  war  of  each  against  all  be  ended.  Says 
Prof.  David  G.  Ritchie,  in  his  Darwinism 
and  Politics: 

"If  we  are  still  reminded  that  only 
through  struggle  can  mankind  attain  any 
good  thing,  let  us  remember  that  there  is  a 
struggle  from  which  we  can  never  altogether 
escape — the  struggle  against  nature,  in- 
cluding the  blind  forces  of  human  passion. 
There  will  always  be  enough  to  do  in  this 
ceaseless  struggle  to  call  forth  all  the  energies 
of  which  human  nature  at  its  very  best  is 
capable." 

In  the  strife  for  worldly  success  you  waste 
energies  which  would  enrich  the  world. 
You  rob  yourself  and  all  men.  However 
poor  in  nature  you  may  be,  you  can  yet 
contribute  to  the  real  success  of  mankind. 
There  is  everything  to  do.  What  though 
the  event  men  call  defeat  forever  recurs  to 
you  ?  In  an  ill-adjusted  world,  where  bru- 
tality and  cunning  and  selfishness  triumph, 
there  is  no  humiliation  in  the  thing  called 

[431 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

defeat,  so  only  that  the  goal  striven  for 
is  the  common  good.  The  humiliation  is 
rather  in  the  consciousness  of  the  misuse 
of  our  fellows  for  our  own  material  gain,  in 
the  obstructing  and  halting  of  the  onward 
march  of  mankind.  Though  the  oracles 
rave,  and  their  followers  imagine  a  vain 
thing,  be  it  yours  to  emulate  rather  than  to 
compete,  to  help  rather  than  to  harm,  to 
struggle  for  and  with  rather  than  against 
mankind,  to  forego  the  lure  of  what  men 
of  the  modern  jungle  call  success,  and  to 
seek  the  success  of  one  in  the  success  of  all. 


[44] 


CHAPTER  II 

TO   THE   REFORMERS 

You  are  hopeful  men,  you  reformers. 
Though  you  want  and  demand  some  of  the 
things  that  Socialists  want,  you  distrust 
and  oppose  Socialism.  You  expect,  by 
eternally  patching  the  weak  and  threadbare 
places  in  the  present  order,  to  make  it  last 
while  time  lasts.  The  augmentation  of 
charity,  the  increase  of  benevolences,  the 
extension  of  "welfare  work,"  the  occasional 
and  guarded  experimentations  with  regula- 
tive legislation,  and  the  furthering  of  what- 
ever is  meant  by  that  unctuous  modern 
phrase,  "  constructive  and  preventive  philan- 
thropy"— these  are  your  means  for  remedy- 
ing acknowledged  evils.  More  than  these 
you  say  is  dangerous.  One  evil  at  a  time, 
you  say,  though  a  thousand  evils  throng 
about  us.     We  must  not  be  in  a  hurry. 

[45] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

Though  pain  and  privation  are  everywhere, 
too  sudden  a  cure,  you  say,  may  be  harmful 
alike  to  individual  and  to  society.  The 
pinch  of  want  does  not  touch  you;  you  are 
secure  from  harm.  You  can  therefore 
afford  to  wait.  And  what  you  can  afford, 
you  narrowly  think  that  mankind  can 
afford. 

There  is  an  opposite  attitude  to  yours, 
as  you  know.  It  will  be  set  down  here,  that 
the  contrast  may  be  kept  in  mind  as 
we  go  along.  It  is  the  attitude  of  Socialism. 
Socialism  aims  to  abolish  the  acknowl- 
edged evils  of  to-day  by  transferring  the 
social  means  of  production  and  distribution 
from  private  to  collective  ownership.  Its 
methods  in  attaining  this  aim  are  to  organ- 
ize, educate  and  discipline  the  class  of 
wage-earning  workers,  the  class  which  suf- 
fers most  under  the  prevailing  system,  and 
which  has  most  to  hope  for  under  the  pro- 
posed system;  to  hold  this  disciplined  body 
separate  and  apart  from  other  bodies,  and 
to  prompt  it  to  win,  by  its  own  force,  from 
the  owning  class,  whatever  immediate  con- 

[46] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

cessions  it  can  without  in  any  manner 
compromising  its  ultimate  aim.  It  strives 
by  all  efforts  in  its  power  to  increase  its 
vote  at  the  ballot-box.  It  believes  that  by 
this  increase  the  attainment  of  its  goal  is 
brought  ever  nearer,  and  also  that  the 
menace  of  this  increasing  vote  induces  the 
capitalist  class  to  grant  concessions  in  the 
hope  of  preventing  further  increases.  It 
criticises  non-Socialist  efforts  at  reform  as 
comparatively  barren  of  positive  benefit  and 
as  tending,  on  the  whole,  to  insure  the  dom- 
inance of  the  capitalist  class  and  to  continue 
the  graver  social  evils  now  prevalent. 

No  doubt  you  censure  and  denounce 
this  uncompromising  attitude  of  Socialism. 
You  want  what  you  call  "practical  results," 
and  you  believe  that  these  results  are  best 
obtained  by  opportunist  methods.  Social 
evolution,  you  say,  must  be  gradual  and 
uniformitarian,  as  you  imagine  physical 
evolution  to  be.  You  appeal  to  history,  too, 
in  an  attempt  to  show  that  most  reforms  have 
come  by  moderate  and  gradual  changes. 
The   extension   of   manhood   suffrage,    the 

[47] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

general  abolishment  of  the  property  quali- 
fication for  office-holding,  the  growth  of 
factory  legislation,  the  increase  of  wages, 
the  shortening  of  the  work-day — all  are 
instanced  by  you  as  advances  made  by 
means  of  a  policy  directly  opposed  to  the 
separatist  and  thoroughgoing  policy  of 
the  Socialist  party.  Step-at-a-time  is  your 
motto,  and  compromise  and  appeals  to  the 
better  nature  of  the  ruling  class  are  your 
means  of  action. 

Small  Latin  and  less  Greek,  and  some- 
thing less  than  an  encyclopedic  holding  in 
social  science,  are  needed  by  the  Socialists 
to  question  such  assertions  and  to  reject 
such  methods.  Long  before  De  Vries  and 
Burbank  came  to  our  aid  with  their  proof 
of  mutations  in  the  physical  world,  we  knew 
out  of  history  that  social  evolution  has  other 
movements  than  those  of  gradual  and 
uniformitarian  transformations.  Violent 
and  revolutionary  changes  are  made. 
French  revolutions,  English  and  American 
civil  wars,  abolitions  of  feudal  privileges 
and  of  chattel  slavery,  interrupt  the  peace- 

[48] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

ful  progress  of  society,  just  as  Krakatoa 
and  Mont  Pelee  accompany  the  age-long 
erosion  of  the  Grand  Canon  of  the  Colorado 
or  the  washing  down  of  the  detritus  of  the 
Mississippi  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Evo- 
lution makes  use  of  all  forms  of  motion. 
She  multiplies  her  effects  by  infinitesimal 
gradations,  but  when  this  multiplication 
reaches  the  allotted  sum  she  overturns,  in 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  states  and  systems, 
as  she  explodes  mountains  and  uplifts 
valleys. 

As  social  evolution  is  not  universally 
gradual,  neither  is  it  universally  pacific. 
On  the  contrary,  its  main  impulse  has  ever 
been  a  conflict  of  interests.  Classes  have 
opposed  classes  in  all  historic  times.  The 
efforts  of  the  possessing  classes  to  hold  and 
of  the  non-possessing  to  acquire  have  deter- 
mined, in  large  part,  the  social  order.  The 
common  illusion  that  the  acknowledged  ad- 
vances toward  democracy  and  well-being 
have  been  caused  by  a  spread  of  altruistic 
ideas  and  the  breaking  of  class  lines  is 
dispelled   when  we   look   seriously   at  the 

4  [49] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

contemporary  economic  and  political  con- 
ditions. Altruism  is  rather  an  effect  than 
a  cause.  Moreover,  though  certain  social 
advances  benefit  all  classes,  the  conflict 
of  interests  grows  apace.  When  England 
granted  the  reforms  of  1832  she  did  it  not 
out  of  an  expansion  of  democratic  sentiment, 
but  to  avert  a  civil  war.  The  rising  class 
of  manufacturers  and  traders  pressed  heavily 
against  the  ruling  class  of  nobility  and 
gentry  for  a  share  of  political  power,  and 
would  not  be  dissuaded.  To  win  their 
point  they  enlisted,  for  the  moment,  the 
support  of  the  working  class.  The  first 
factory  acts  were  passed  not  because  of  a 
humanitarian  interest  on  the  part  of  the 
"upper  classes"  (except  in  rare  individual 
cases),  but  because  the  rapid  annihilation  of 
the  peasantry  and  proletariat  jeoparded  the 
existence  of  the  English  army,  and  because 
the  nobility,  jealous  of  the  rival  class  of 
manufacturers  and  traders,  were  willing, 
even  eager,  to  clip  their  powers  and  profits. 
When  Bismarck  gave  manhood  suffrage 
to  Germany  it  was  not  through  devotion 

[50] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

to  an  abstract  principle  of  democracy.  He 
recognized  the  force  of  the  particularist 
patriotism  binding  men  to  their  various 
little  kingdoms  and  principalities;  and  to 
oppose  that  force  he  sought  to  create  a 
tie  binding  men  by  a  dominant  interest  to 
the  Empire.  To  this  day  Germany  dis- 
plays the  anomaly  of  a  nation  electing  its 
national  representative  body  by  manhood 
suffrage,  but  electing  its  various  state  and 
municipal  bodies  by  the  grossest  forms  of 
property  suffrage.  The  winning  of  the 
suffrage  in  America  is  another  case  in  point. 
Had  altruism  or  the  consciousness  of  a 
classless  society  determined  the  matter, 
surely  the  men  who  wrote  the  democratic 
generalizations  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence would  have  conceded  the  suffrage 
to  working-men.  But  they  did  not;  their 
economic  interests  opposed  manhood  suf- 
frage, and  it  had  to  be  wrested  from  the 
rulers  by  a  long  series  of  attacks  by  the 
working  class. 

There  is  thus,  as  society  is  now  consti- 
tuted,   an    enduring    conflict    of    interests; 

[51] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

and  it  is  force,  actual  or  potential,  that  wins 
advances.  But  it  is  force  directed  in  par- 
ticular ways,  according  to  the  issue  and  the 
political  and  economic  environment.  The 
reforms  here  instanced  were  incidental  and 
partial;  they  had  to  do,  for  the  most  part, 
with  political  rather  than  economic  matters, 
and  they  did  not  in  themselves  menace 
the  supremacy  of  capitalism.  Indeed,  they 
may  be  held  to  have  conserved,  to  have 
strengthened  capitalism;  for  they  have  fur- 
nished what  has  been  so  far  a  peaceful  and 
harmless  outlet  for  popular  dissatisfaction. 
As  they  did  not  jeopard  the  system  of  cap- 
italism, the  question  of  granting  them  could, 
and  often  did,  divide  and  array  against  one 
another  the  various  factions  of  the  wealth- 
owning  class. 

Far  clearer  is  the  situation  with  regard 
to  industrial  reforms — reforms  which,  in- 
tended to  safeguard  the  health  and  lives  of 
the  workers,  do  in  effect  lessen  the  profits 
of  capitalists  and  curtail  the  powers  of 
capitalism.  Against  such  reforms  all  the 
various  sections  of  the  wealth-owning  class 

[52  1 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

are  usually  united.  And  yet  it  is  in  regard 
to  just  such  reforms  that  you  criticise  the 
Socialist  method  and  seek  to  better  the  con- 
dition of  the  workers  by  paltry  philanthro- 
pies, by  petty  amendments  to  legislation,  or 
by  trifling  administrative  reforms — always  by 
and  through  co-operation  with  the  wealth- 
owning  class  or  individual  owners  of  wealth. 
The  obvious,  the  apparent  argument  is 
confessedly  with  you  in  your  reformism,  your 
opportunism.  When  you  give  coal  to  the 
tireless  or  medicine  to  the  ill,  you  can  of 
course  see  an  immediate  benefit.  No  one 
can  doubt  that  charity  relieves  a  multitude 
of  hungry  stomachs.  The  sympathetic  in- 
terest, the  kindly  care,  dispensed  at  some 
of  the  settlements  is  a  helpful,  and  some- 
times a  lasting,  benefit  to  the  poor  children 
of  the  tenements.  Or,  passing  from  benev- 
olence to  reform,  one  can  see  at  least  a  pos- 
sibility of  benefits  in  laws  ordering  seats  for 
shop-girls,  reducing  the  hours  of  women  in 
the  factories,  or  in  international  agreements 
to  promote  labor  legislation.  One  may  even 
see,    though    doubtless    more    dimly,    such 

[53] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

possibility  in  laws  aiming  at  the  curtail- 
ment of  graft,  or  the  regulation  of  issues  of 
stocks  and  bonds,  or  in  the  creation  of  public 
utilities  commissions. 

But  there  is,  as  Lester  Ward  tells  us  in 
his  Pure  Sociology,  an  optical  aberration 
known  as  the  "  illusion  of  the  near."  "  If  we 
magnify  any  object  sufficiently,''  he  writes, 
"it  loses  its  character."  To  be  seen  rightly, 
it  must  be  seen  in  relation  to  other  things. 
These  immediate  and  incidental  benefits, 
seen  too  closely  and  seen  also  under  the 
magnifying  influence  of  a  sense  of  your 
personal  share  in  achieving  them,  may  take 
on  a  size  and  importance  wholly  out  of  their 
reality. 

For  these  things,  even  when  real  benefits, 
may  be  gained  at  a  sacrifice  of  greater 
benefits.  It  is  nothing  at  all  of  permanent 
social  advantage  to  have  a  few  hundred 
children  welcomed  and  schooled  at  the 
settlements,  if  at  the  same  time  several 
hundred  thousand  children  in  the  nation 
are  added  to  the  army  of  wage-earners. 
It  is  nothing  to  pass  a  few  laws  in  behalf 

[54] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

of  the  industrial  workers,  if  every  year  the 
lot  of  thousands  of  wage-earners  becomes 
more  wretched.  A  general  safety-appliance 
law  is  a  delusive  thing  to  boast  of,  if  proof 
can  be  shown  that  the  ratio  of  railway 
casualties  increases  year  by  year.  Nor  is  it 
anything  to  be  able  to  chronicle  a  step  here 
and  a  step  there  toward  municipal  ownership, 
if  constantly  the  concentration  of  wealth  be- 
comes more  accentuated.  .  Every  one,  even 
the  most  extreme  revolutionist,  is  able  to 
see  petty  changes  for  the  better  now  and 
then.  But  what  is  needed  is  a  clear- 
sighted estimate  of  these  benefits  in  their 
relation  to  social  progress  as  a  whole. 

Now  the  Socialist  policy  is  not  to  disdain 
concessions  from  the  owning  or  capitalist 
class,  but  to  consider  always  the  character 
of  such  concessions  and  the  mode  by  which 
they  are  gained.  The  Socialist  party  never 
permits  itself  to  forget  that  the  working 
class  may  accept  charity,  or  legislative  or 
administrative  gifts,  at  the  sacrifice  of  its 
discipline,  of  its  integrity,  and  in  jeopardy 
of  the  attainment  of  its  ultimate  rights.     A 

[55] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

notable  part  of  its  function  is  perpetually 
to  warn  the  working-class  Esau  not  to  sell 
his  birthright  for  a  bad  meal. 

In  legislative  bodies  its  representatives 
always  vote  for  those  measures  believed  by 
them  to  be  of  advantage  to  the  working 
class.  But  they  concern  themselves  very 
little  with  those  trumpery  measures  which 
in  increasing  number  are  introduced  in  our 
legislatures,  and  sometimes  in  our  reform 
conventions — measures  which  reveal  the 
dying  struggles  of  the  so-called  "middle 
class,"  and  its  desperate  clutching  at  any- 
thing which  may  keep  it  for  another  moment 
above  water.  The  rank  and  file  of  the 
Socialist  party,  however,  take  upon  them- 
selves the  obligation  not  to  vote  for  the  men 
or  measures  of  any  other  party.  Of  course, 
you  denounce  this  policy.  But  even  the 
most  republican  army  of  which  any  one 
can  conceive  would  hardly  permit  the  relax- 
ation of  its  discipline  to  the  point  where  the 
soldiers  in  the  ranks  could  dicker  with  the 
enemy.  And  it  is  as  members  of  a  social 
army  that  the  units  of  the  Socialist  party 

[56] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

regard  themselves.  A  ministerial  function, 
hedged  in  and  sharply  bounded  by  dem- 
ocratic authority,  is  given  to  its  legislative 
representatives,  but  the  ranks  themselves 
maintain  a  disciplined  unity.  The  rank  and 
file,  then,  sanction  in  their  representatives 
the  voting  for  beneficial  measures,  but  they 
keep  these  legates  ever  charged  with  the 
duty  of  not  forgetting  the  ultimate  aim. 

It  is  the  fashion  just  now  to  ridicule,  or 
to  try  to  ridicule,  so-called  extreme  views, 
and  to  lay  stress  upon  so-called  practical 
action.  Separated  some  decades  from  the 
time  and  having  no  personal  interests  at 
stake,  you  can  now  all  of  you  honor  and 
extol  the  extremists  of  the  American  Revo- 
lution, and  in  a  somewhat  lesser  degree, 
because  nearer  in  point  of  time,  the  ex- 
tremists of  the  Abolition  movement.  But 
you  denounce  the  men  who,  in  our  own 
time,  are  carrying  these  former  revolutions 
to  their  inescapable  conclusions.  These 
men  are  troubling  the  general  complacency, 
they  are  jarring  mankind  from  the  "trance 
of  every-day  life,"  and  they  are  disturbing 

[57] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

the  "interests."  Everywhere  one  hears  this 
chorus  of  exhortation  to  be  practical;  to 
shun  the  misguided,  the  unbalanced,  the 
visionary  Socialist,  and  to  "get  things  done." 
"We  Socialists,"  said  Bebel  once,  "have 
no  dogmas.  We  are  a  party  of  learners." 
If  any  doctrine  or  contention  of  ours  can 
be  shown  to  be  unfounded,  we  are  eager  to 
have  proof.  Just  now  we  are  clamorous 
for  an  itemized  account  regarding  the  gen- 
eral and  enduring  benefits  of  the  step-at- 
a-time  policy.  The  supporters  of  a  policy 
alleged  to  be  so  practical  ought  to  be  able 
to  show  a  ledger  with  many  and  important 
entries  on  the  credit  side,  and  few  and  less 
weighty  entries  on  the  debit  side.  We  want 
it  shown  to  us  that  by  reason  of  some 
ten  or  twenty  years  of  grave  discussions 
by  economists,  by  reason  of  the  activity  of 
city  clubs,  of  reform  associations,  of  non- 
partisan citizens'  movements,  of  Democratic 
"radicals"  or  Republican  "insurgents,"  of 
committees  of  one  sort  and  another  formed 
for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  some  immediate 
good,  any  general  enduring  good  has  been 

[58] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

gained.  We  want  it  shown  that  by  the 
operation  of  these  methods  wealth  has  been 
more  equitably  distributed,  the  lot  of  the 
industrial  worker  has  been  bettered;  the 
number  of  industrial  casualties  has  been 
diminished;  pauperism,  insanity  and  crime 
have  been  sensibly  lessened;  political  and 
commercial  graft  has  been  curtailed;  the 
equality  of  rich  and  poor  before  the  law 
has  been  advanced;  employment  has  been 
made  more  secure;  general  opportunities 
have  been  extended,  or,  in  a  word,  any 
general  progress  worthy  of  the  name  toward 
a  more  ideal  state  of  society  has  been 
achieved. 

It  is  with  almost  jaunty  confidence  that 
the  Socialists  challenge  the  production  of 
such  a  ledger.  Many  reformers  may  no 
doubt  have  bettered  their  own  condition 
in  ten  or  twenty  years,  and  now,  seeing 
life  through  the  roseate  colors  of  happier 
surroundings,  may  easily  translate  their  own 
progress  into  that  of  the  world  in  general, 
causing  them  to  dower  the  most  wretched 
of  their  fellows   with   imagined   blessings. 

[59] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

But  something  more  than  the  personal 
equation  applied  to  guesswork  is  demanded 
in  this  place. 

This  is  a  specific  demand,  with  a  definite 
time  period.  It  would  be  idle  to  deny  that 
in  decades  or  centuries  many  kinds  of 
progress  have  been  made.  Society  is  always 
in  a  state  of  instability,  and  is  ever  seeking, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  to  adjust  it- 
self to  the  changing  mode  of  producing  and 
distributing  goods — to  the  economic  process 
upon  which  it  is  founded.  These  adjust- 
ments, however,  in  so  far  as  they  are  real 
adjustments,  are  things  with  which  you 
reformers  have  little  to  do.  In  the  earlier 
period  of  an  economic  system  they  are 
generally  spontaneous  and  unconscious,  and 
in  the  later  period  they  are  conscious,  being 
the  result  of  the  growing  power  of  an  advanc- 
ing class.  They  are  adjustments  with  which 
you  reformers  have  about  as  much  to  do  as 
had  the  proverbial  fly  in  raising  the  cloud 
of  dust  about  the  chariot  wheel. 

You  must  show,  then,  not  merely  that  by 
your  methods  you  have  caused  to  be  done 

[60] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

this  thing  or  that,  but  that  the  thing  done 
was  worth  the  doing — that  it  has  made  some 
observable  betterment  of  social  conditions. 
We  have  a  period  in  the  history  of  this 
country  wherein  such  a  test  can  fairly  be 
applied.  The  Henry  George  uprising  oc- 
curred in  the  summer  and  fall  of  1886.  It 
marked  the  beginning  of  a  crusade  of  op- 
portunist endeavor.  In  the  twenty-four 
years  following  that  time  we  have  had  every 
imaginable  sort  of  effort  at  correcting  evils. 
We  have  had  many  conventions  of  econo- 
mists and  publicists,  we  have  instituted  labor 
bureaus,  passed  innumerable  labor  and 
railroad  laws  in  the  States,  while  the  nation 
has  given  us  among  other  things  an  anti- 
trust law,  a  contract-labor  law,  an  interstate 
commerce  law  and  a  safety-appliance  law. 
Benefactions  have  grown  more  princely,  we 
have  more  than  doubled  the  number  of  our 
benevolent  institutions,  we  have  enormously 
increased  our  charities,  we  have  transformed 
many  of  our  colleges  and  universities  from 
cottages  into  palaces,  we  have  laid  out  parks 
and  playgrounds,  and  we  have  dotted  the 

[61] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

cities  with  settlements.  Surely,  after  so 
much  practical  endeavor,  after  so  great 
achievement,  the  social  state  of  the  country 
should  be  well-nigh  ideal.  There  should 
be  no  poverty,  no  luxury,  little  crime. 
There  should  be  peace  and  plenty,  just 
administration  of  law,  honesty  alike  in 
public  and  private  service,  and  each  man 
should  be  able  to  sit  unafraid  in  the  shadow 
of  his  vine  and  fig-tree,  and  as  he  remembers 
with  scorn  the  wild  denunciations  and  the 
visionary  proposals  of  the  foolish  Socialists, 
contemplate  with  rapture  the  blessings 
gained  for  him  by  practical,  step-at-a-time 
effort. 

Let  us  see  what  are  some  of  these  wonder- 
ful social  gains  in  the  last  ten  or  twenty 
years.  We  are  paying,  as  a  nation,  on  the 
authority  of  Professor  Charles  J.  Bushnell, 
$6,000,000,000  annually  for  our  charities 
and  corrections.  These  figures  are  appall- 
ing, and  it  is  hard  to  say  just  how  they  are 
to  be  confirmed  by  data  now  available. 
But  Professor  Bushnell,  in  a  sharp  reply  to 
his  critics,    reiterates    them,  and  indicates 

[62] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

sources  from  which,  he  maintains,  they  can 
be  sustained.  If  they  are  correct,  they  show 
a  constant  and  growing  deficit  in  our  ac- 
counts as  a  nation.  For  in  the  four  years 
1900-04,  at  least  the  latter  part  of  this  period 
having  been  graced  with  a  truly  wonderful 
degree  of  so-called  "  prosperity,"  the  national 
wealth  increased,  according  to  the  census, 
at  the  rate  of  only  $4,646,000,000  yearly. 
We  should  thus  be  gaining  four  and  three- 
quarter  billions  yearly,  and  paying  it  all, 
and  a  billion  and  a  quarter  besides,  to 
square  the  account  with  the  victims. 

Anyway,  we  are  gaining  now  at  the  rate 
of  four  and  three-quarter  billions  a  year. 
From  1880  to  1900  our  wealth  increased 
from  forty-three  to  ninety-five  billions. 
But  who  got  the  increase?  Is  wealth  any 
more  widely  distributed  to-day  than  it  was 
twenty-five  years  ago  ?  There  are  a  number 
of  prosperous  persons,  and  others  who 
through  their  subservience  hope  to  be  pros- 
perous, who  say  so.  But  it  is  doubtful  if  any 
considerable  number  of  the  unprosperous 
take  them  seriously.     There  are  the  savings- 

[63] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

bank  statistics,  of  course — the  first  and  last 
refuge  of  the  optimistic  statistician.  It  is 
almost  needless  to  say,  however,  that  in 
this  day  no  one  whose  judgment  counts 
for  much  accepts  savings-bank  figures  as 
an  index  of  working-class  conditions.  And 
there  is  nothing  else  that  can  be  even  juggled 
into  indicating  increased  prosperity  among 
the  wage-workers. 

Unfortunately,  we  have  had  very  little 
work  on  the  distribution  of  wealth  in  1880. 
But  with  1890  we  have  the  computations  of 
Mr.  Lucien  Sanial,  Mr.  George  K.  Holmes 
and  Dr.  Charles  B.  Spahr.  Mr.  Thomas 
G.  Shearman's  computation  was  made  in 
1889,  but  it  differs  in  only  minor  particulars 
from  Mr.  SaniaPs.  All  of  these  estimates 
are  in  fairly  close  agreement — a  remarkable 
fact,  considering  the  different  methods  by 
which  they  were  reached.  They  show, 
averaging  them,  that  not  less  than  51  per 
cent,  of  the  nation's  wealth  was  owned  by 
not  more  than  1  per  cent,  of  the  people. 

But  by  1900  this  concentration  had  be- 
come   greatly    accentuated.     Mr.    Sanial's 

[64] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

estimate  for  that  year  puts  the  plutocratic 
class  at  nine-tenths  of  1  per  cent,  of  the 
numbers  engaged  in  gainful  occupations, 
and  gives  it  70.5  per  cent,  of  the  total  wealth. 
But  the  plutocratic  class  as  a  whole  con- 
tains many  persons  of  wealth  who  are  not 
engaged  in  gainful  occupations;  and  an 
estimate  for  this  additional  wealth  brings 
the  aggregate  for  1900  to  75  per  cent,  of 
the  total.  To-day  we  have  to  account  for 
ten  more  years  of  this  uninterrupted  move- 
ment of  concentration,  in  a  time  of  great 
wealth  production.  We  shall  not  go  far 
astray  in  estimating  an  addition  to  the 
wealth  of  this  1  per  cent,  of  the  population 
which  brings  its  present  possessions  to 
85  per  cent,  of  the  total. 

The  workers,  as  a  class,  got  little,  if  any 
part,  of  this  increase.  The  nominal  wages 
of  the  skilled  workers  are  higher,  the  actual 
wages  of  all  workers,  skilled  and  unskilled, 
are  lower  than  they  were  in  1890,  probably 
lower  on  the  whole  than  they  were  in  1886. 
No  one  will  accuse  the  statisticians  of  the 
Labor  Bureau  of  an  undue  pessimism.     But 

5  [M] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

the  best  they  can  do  in  the  Bulletin  for  July, 
1908,  is  to  show  an  average  weekly  wage 
in  1907  of  21.2  per  cent,  above  that  of  1890. 
This,  mark  you,  is  for  the  manufacturing 
industries,  including  the  most  skilled  and 
the  best  organized  workers.  No  one  sup- 
poses the  common  laborers,  clerks  and  the 
like  to  have  made  any  such  gain.  It  is  a 
matter  of  common  observation  that  the 
wages  of  clerks  are  rather  less  than  more 
than  they  were  twenty  years  ago.  The 
same  thing  is  true  of  salesmen  in  stores, 
and  is  probably  true  of  common  laborers. 
But  this  increase  of  wages,  restricted  as 
it  is  to  but  a  part  of  the  working  class,  must 
suffer  a  considerable  reduction.  The  same 
issue  of  the  Labor  Bulletin  gives  the  increase 
in  the  retail  prices  of  food,  weighted  ac- 
cording to  family  consumption,  as  17.8  per 
cent,  for  the  same  time.  Since  then  prices 
have  been  almost  steadily  rising.  Brad- 
street's  for  December  11,  1909,  stated  that 
the  increase  since  June  1,  1901,  had  been 
23  per  cent.  The  figures  do  not  of  course 
include  rent,  which  has  risen  enormously, 

[66] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

nor  certain  other  necessities.  The  showing 
does  not  accord  with  the  theory  of  increased 
distribution  of  wealth  among  the  workers. 
There  has  been  no  such  increased  distribu- 
tion. There  has  been,  instead,  increased 
concentration. 

The  census  figures  on  paupers  in  alms- 
houses show  an  absolute  increase,  though 
a  relative  decrease,  in  twenty  years.  But, 
as  the  census  bulletin  remarks,  the  figures 
indicate  very  little  regarding  the  extent  of 
privation.  The  better  classification  of  de- 
pendents, which  now  distributes  many  of 
them  to  institutions  other  than  almshouses; 
the  differing  provisions  regarding  paupers  in 
the  various  States ;  and  the  general  effect  of 
private  charity,  which  saves  a  great  many 
paupers  from  institutions — are  factors  which 
make  comparisons  of  these  figures  futile. 

The  figures  on  farm  mortgages,  farm 
tenantry  and  proletarian  unemployment  are 
also  indecisive.  The  movement  of  farm 
mortgages  is  not  a  final  indication  of  any- 
thing. Some  men  mortgage  their  property 
because  they  are  poor,  and  some  because 

[67] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

they  want  to  buy  more  property.  It  may 
be  conceded,  too,  that  the  frightful  showing 
of  unemployment  in  the  1900  census  has 
been  corrected  to  some  extent  by  increased 
employment  (except  during  the  panic  time, 
1907-08)  since  then.  But  it  is  not  so  easy 
to  concede  the  contention  made  by  Dr. 
Henry  C.  Taylor,  in  his  work  on  Agricul- 
tural Economics,  that  the  great  increase 
of  farm  tenantry  is  rather  an  indication  of 
prosperity  than  the  reverse.  To  consider  all 
these  figures  adequately  would  take  us  too 
far  afield.  It  is  sufficient  to  point  out  that, 
on  the  showing  of  data  about  which  there  is 
less  dispute,  the  practical  things  done  by 
you  these  last  twenty  years  have  not  per- 
ceptibly impeded  the  tide  of  wealth  con- 
centration or  lightened  the  general  lot  of 
the  poor. 

Well,  there  are  the  railroads.  No  prob- 
lem of  to-day  has  been  so  constantly  a  sub- 
ject of  discussion,  of  private  proposals  and 
of  legislative  enactments.  Twenty-three 
years  ago  the  Interstate  Commerce  Com- 
mission   was    established,    and    since    that 

[68] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

time  the  subject  of  railroads  has  been  almost 
uninterruptedly  before  every  legislature, 
every  Congress  and  every  social  and  eco- 
nomic convention.  One  of  the  main  objects 
always  aimed  at  was  the  abolition  of  dis- 
criminating rates  against  the  "  little  fellows." 
And  what  has  been  the  result  ?  The  report 
of  the  United  States  Industrial  Commission 
(1901)  declares:  "There  is  a  general  con- 
sensus of  opinion  among  practically  all 
witnesses,  including  members  of  the 
Interstate  Commission,  representatives  of 
shippers,  and  railway  officers,  that  the 
railways  still  make  discriminations  between 
individuals,  and  perhaps  to  as  great  an 
extent  as  before."  And  again:  "It  is 
thought  generally  that  there  has  been  a 
considerable  improvement  in  the  situation 
during  1899.  .  .  .  Many  witnesses,  however, 
including  representatives  of  the  railroads, 
think  that  the  improvement  is  only  tempo- 
rary, and  that,  when  the  present  rush  of 
traffic  has  ceased,  discriminating  rates  will 
be  granted  more  and  more."  Professor 
Frank   Parsons,   in  his    The   Heart  of  the 

[69] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

Railway  Problem  (1906),  comments  upon 
this  declaration  as  follows:  "The  investiga- 
tions of  the  last  five  years  show  that  these 
witnesses  were  right  in  thinking  the  cessation 
of  hostilities  to  be  only  a  temporary  truce." 
The  Interstate  Commerce  Report  for  1905 
is  still  complaining  about  violations  of  the 
law,  declaring  that  rebates  are  unquestion- 
ably paid  and  that  unjust  preferences  are 
given  by  other  methods.  Since  then  it 
has  been  officially  asserted  that  the  giving 
of  rebates  has  practically  ceased.  Is  the 
assertion  true?  Men  who  claim  to  know 
the  situation  declare  that  the  only  change 
is  in  the  greater  subtlety  by  which  the  law 
is  evaded.  And  has  the  creation  of  the 
Commission  resulted  in  benefiting  the  small 
shipper?  A  prominent  independent  oil  re- 
finer said  to  me  recently  that  probably  not 
a  single  person  has  ever  complained  to  the 
Commission  without  subsequently  regretting 
his  action.  For  what  the  railroads  and  the 
Standard  Oil  Company  did  to  the  aggrieved 
person  previous  to  his  complaint  was  mere 
child's  play  to  what  they  did  afterward. 

[70] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

Is  the  railroad  situation  more  satisfactory 
in  its  other  phases?  Is  the  manipulation 
of  railroad  properties  less  easy  or  less 
frequently  resorted  to?  Is  the  watering  of 
stocks  to  the  saturation  point  less  common  ? 
Have  the  abuses  of  the  private  car  graft 
been  curtailed  ?  He  would  be  an  optimistic 
person  who  would  answer  "yes." 

How  is  it  with  railroad  casualties  ?  The 
interstate  roads  reported  for  the  year  ended 
June  30,  1909,  8,722  persons  killed  and 
95,626  injured.  This  is  not  their  highest 
record,  but  it  will  do  for  comparison.  This 
casualty  list,  it  should  be  noted,  is  greater 
in  the  number  killed  than  that  suffered  by 
both  contending  armies  at  both  the  bloody 
battles  of  Stone  River  and  Gettysburg,  and 
greater  in  the  number  wounded  than  that 
suffered  by  both  armies  at  Antietam,  Freder- 
icksburg, Stone  River,  Chancellorsville  and 
Gettysburg  combined. 

Though  the  ten-year  period,  1895-1905, 
witnessed  an  almost  steady  increase  in  the 
ratio  of  casualties  to  passengers  carried, 
a  marked  improvement  has  been  shown  in 

[71] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

figures  for  1908  and  1909.  But  the  casualty 
rate  for  employes  is  steadily  worse.  In 
1895  one  employe  was  killed  for  every 
433  employed;  the  average  for  the  three- 
year  period,  1906-08,  was  1  in  393.  In  the 
earlier  year  one  was  wounded  for  each  31 
employed;  the  average  for  1906-08  was  1 
in  19;  the  figure  for  1908, 1  in  17.  Or  take 
the  employes  known  specifically  as  train- 
men. The  safety-appliance  act  was  passed 
for  their  benefit,  and  in  1908  it  had  been  to 
some  degree  in  operation  for  fifteen  years. 
Yet  in  the  earlier  year  one  trainman  was 
killed  for  each  155,  as  against  one  for  each 
133  in  1906-08,  and  one  wounded  for  each 
11  in  the  earlier  year  as  against  one  for  each 
8  in  the  later  period. 

It  would  thus  not  appear  that  any  of 
your  multifarious  efforts  toward  reform 
has  greatly  lessened  the  ratio  of  casual- 
ties among  railroad  employes.  How  is  it, 
then,  with  general  industrial  casualties? 
Unfortunately,  we  have  here  less  reliable 
figures  for  comparison.  We  are  beginning 
to  learn  something  about  the  number  of 

[72] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

casualties  to-day,  but  our  comparison  with 
the  past  decade  or  two  is  largely  confined 
to  guesswork.  We  have  the  undeniable 
record  of  increased  killing  and  maiming 
on  the  railroads;  and  a  general  though  not 
uniform  increase  in  the  mines.  The  in- 
crease of  general  industrial  casualties  is 
hardly  an  arguable  point,  since  no  one 
regardful  of  his  reputation  would  dispute  it. 
We  know  that  to-day  we  are  destroying 
lives  at  a  rate  abput  the  same  as  that  main- 
tained during  the  Civil  War.  The  com- 
putation of  Mr.  Frederick  L.  Hoffman, 
the  statistician  of  the  Prudential  Life  Insur- 
ance Company,  estimates  a  fatal-accident 
rate  in  the  United  States  of  from  80  to  85 
in  100,000.  On  a  basis  of  90,000,000  popu- 
lation, this  would  mean  from  72,000  to 
76,500  killings.  The  serious  woundings  he 
puts  at  1,600,000.  But  the  fatal-accident 
rate  for  the  entire  registration  area  as  given 
in  the  census  of  1900  is  90.3.  This  would 
mean  81,270  killings  yearly.  Admitting 
that  not  more  than  80  per  cent,  of  these 
should  come  under  the  head  of  industrial 

[73] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

accidents  proper,  we  should  still  have  a 
yearly  total  of  65,016.  The  Civil  War  did 
but  little,  if  any,  worse  than  this  in  actual 
killings  and  mortal  woundings,  while  in 
maimings  and  in  disablements  through  dis- 
ease it  furnished  a  record  that  is  paltry 
in  comparison  with  that  made  by  our  present 
industrial  system.  It  would  seem  that  we 
shall  have  to  look  elsewhere  for  evidence 
of  the  solid  progress  made  toward  more 
ideal  social  conditions  by  following  the 
practical  policy  of  one  step  at  a  time. 
Where  else  shall  we  look? 

Something  has  indubitably  been  done  in 
reducing  the  death-rate.  This  is  a  doubtful 
gain  if  social  conditions  are  to  remain  as 
they  are.  For  no  philosopher  who  includes 
happiness  in  his  list  of  goods  desirable  for 
humanity  can  deem  it  well  that  a  child 
should  be  rescued  from  death  in  order  to 
drag  its  wretched  being  through  the  hell 
of  industrial  life  as  we  know  it  to-day.  Yet 
let  us  take  this  thing  as  a  gain,  and  see  what 
it  is.  As  Dr.  John  Shaw  Billings  points 
out,  the  improvement  is  almost  wholly  due 

[74] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

to  the  better  nourishing  of  children  and 
the  better  treatment  of  their  diseases.  The 
reduction  is  marked  in  tuberculosis,  of 
course;  and  persons  of  all  ages  have  tuber- 
culosis. But  the  losses  from  pneumonia, 
cancer,  heart  disease,  apoplexy  and  other 
diseases  of  adulthood  and  senescence  are 
generally  greater.  It  is  a  virtual  consensus 
among  life-insurance  actuaries  that  in  fifty 
years  there  has  been  no  prolongation  of 
adult  life.  In  other  words,  all  the  benefits 
of  science,  all  the  benefits  of  an  increasing 
observance  of  common  sense  in  physical 
conduct — the  application  of  India  rubber 
to  clothing,  the  improvement  of  food,  the 
bettering  of  ventilation,  the  greater  addic- 
tion to  life  in  the  open  air — all  these  changes, 
and  others  besides,  have  been  counterbal- 
anced by  the  increased  strain  and  danger 
of  modern  competitive  life. 

This  fiercer  battle  certainly  increases  the 
number  of  the  insane.  Much  has  been  done 
for  these  unfortunates:  better  treatment  is 
accorded  them,  and  an  increasing  number 
of  hospitals  is  built  for  their  accommoda- 

[75] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

tion.  But  the  number  of  the  insane  in- 
creases at  a  frightful  rate.  We  had  40,942 
insane  in  1880,  we  had  74,028  in  162  hos- 
pitals in  1890,  150,151  in  328  hospitals  in 
1900.  The  total  insane  in  and  out  of 
hospitals  was  170  per  100,000  in  1890;  the 
total  in  hospitals  only,  186.2  per  100,000 
in  1900.  In  fifty  years  the  increase  has 
been  300  per  cent. 

There  has  been  some  progress  in  reducing 
illiteracy.  But  this,  too,  is  a  questionable 
good,  if  other  social  conditions  are  to  remain 
as  they  are.  It  cannot  be  any  advantage, 
in  any  tolerable  scheme  of  things,  to  educate 
a  child  only  to  make  it  more  conscious  of 
its  inescapable  misery.  But,  even  assuming 
education  to  be  a  good  in  all  times  and 
under  all  circumstances,  the  figures  are 
hardly  encouraging.  Their  clearest  indica- 
tion is  that  illiteracy  is  decreasing  most 
largely  through  the  dying-off  of  the  negro 
slaves,  who  were  rarely  permitted  to  learn 
to  read,  and  that  in  their  place  is  an  increas- 
ing number  of  negro  children  who  can 
barely  read. 

[76] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

It  is  true  there  has  been  in  twenty  years 
a  marked  reduction  relative  to  population 
in  native  white  illiterates.  Yet  in  ten 
years  illiteracy  has  increased  relative  to 
population  in  the  large  cities  of  New  York, 
New  Jersey,  Connecticut,  Rhode  Island 
and  Oregon,  and  in  the  small  cities  and 
country  districts  of  Arizona,  Connecticut, 
Montana,  Nevada,  South  Dakota,  Okla- 
homa and  Wyoming.  There  are  still 
6,180,869  persons  at  least  ten  years  of  age 
who  are  illiterate — a  number  only  59,889 
less  than  that  of  twenty  years  ago.  But 
the  real  figures  are  missing  from  the  census 
tables — the  figures  which  would  show  the 
extent  and  degree  of  education.  Those 
who  have  investigated  the  matter  of  the 
ages  at  which  children  leave  the  public 
schools  know  that  there  is  a  relative  loss 
in  the  amount  of  schooling  given  to  the 
children  of  the  working  class. 

The  figures  of  the  average  daily  attend- 
ance in  the  Chicago  schools  for  the  year 
1902-03  show  44,623  pupils  for  the  first 
year.     Every  year  there  is  a  drop  of  about 

[77] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

5,000,  only  10,928  being  found  in  the  eighth 
year.  And  how  many  do  you  suppose  are 
found  in  the  twelfth  year — that  is,  the  fourth 
year  of  the  high  school  ?  A  poor  remnant 
of  1,306.  Making  all  allowances  for  the 
smaller  number  of  children  in  the  first  grade 
twelve  years  earlier,  there  would  still  be  a 
falling  away  of  about  95  per  cent.  These 
children  who  dropped  out  did  not  die.  The 
mortality  rates  for  children  from  six  to 
seventeen  show  that  death  could  not  have 
claimed  more  than  4,500  of  them.  They 
dropped  out  to  go  to  work.  The  figures 
of  other  cities,  in  so  far  as  they  can  be 
gathered,  show  the  same  conditions.  In 
1903-04,  in  46  cities,  there  were  196,506 
children  in  the  first  grade;  there  were  but 
8,232  in  the  twelfth.  The  figures  are 
eloquent  with  meaning  as  to  the  progress 
of  education. 

Under  the  stress  of  the  prevailing  struggle 
the  children  of  the  workers  are  forced  out 
of  the  schools  to  become  wage-earners. 
Child  labor  becomes  a  greater  and  greater 
menace.     Here  is  another  field  wherein  a 

[78] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

thousand  activities  have  engaged  to  correct 
a  great  evil.  National,  State  and  local 
committees  have  been  formed,  funds  have 
been  raised,  appeals  to  the  Christian  spirit 
of  the  people  have  been  made,  and  an 
onlooker  would  be  led  to  think  that  the 
employment  of  children  would  speedily  be 
terminated.  But  in  1880  the  1,118,356 
child  workers  formed  16.8  per  cent,  of  the 
child  population,  while  in  1900  the  1,750,178 
workers  formed  18.2  per  cent,  of  the  child 
population.  The  1905  census  of  manufac- 
tures shows  a  slight  decrease  in  the  number 
of  child  workers,  it  is  true.  But  manufac- 
tures proper  include  but  a  very  small  part 
of  the  fields  wherein  children  are  employed. 
And  the  reduction  here,  in  all  likelihood,  is 
for  a  cause  analogous  to  that  which  brought 
about  the  decline  of  chattel  slavery  in  the 
Northern  States — the  decreasing  profit,  in 
certain  occupations,  of  child  labor. 

The  number  of  women  in  industry  also 
increases.  The  increase  since  1880  has 
been  2,479,642,  or  105.3  per  cent.  Women 
workers  formed  16  per  cent,   of  the  total 

[79] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

female  population  above  sixteen  years  of 
age  in  1880;  in  1900,  20.6  per  cent.  It  is 
notable  that  the  largest  share  of  the  increase 
in  the  last  decade  from  the  standpoint  of 
race  and  nativity  was  in  the  class  of  native 
white  women  of  native  parentage.  These 
increased  in  number  514,542,  or  39.3  per 
cent.  Married  women  in  industry  increased 
by  260,800,  or  50.4  per  cent.;  widows,  by 
227,665,  or  36.1  per  cent.  These  figures 
mean,  of  course,  an  increasing  disintegra- 
tion of  family  life.  It  cannot  be  said,  either, 
that  on  the  whole  the  lot  of  women  in  indus- 
try has  been  lightened.  There  has  been 
considerable  factory  legislation  and  some 
legislation  aimed  at  the  department  stores. 
But  the  factory  legislation  has  been  largely 
futile,  and  the  refusal  of  the  courts  to  pro- 
tect women  in  the  matter  of  hours  of  work 
has  increased  their  burdens.  Moreover,  no 
one  at  all  conversant  with  the  department 
stores  in  New  York  City,  for  instance,  will 
dare  to  assert  that  since  the  passage  of  the 
Andrews  bill  in  1895  the  treatment  accorded 
women  employes  has  as  a  whole  improved. 

[80] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

The  difficulty  of  organizing  industrial 
women  makes  possible  the  heaping  upon 
them  of  a  thousand  abuses;  and  nothing 
that  you  reformers  have  done  or  can  do  in 
the  matter  is  likely  to  better  their  condition. 
Try,  if  you  will,  the  task  of  organizing  a 
campaign  in  behalf  of  women  employes  in 
department  stores.  Right  at  the  start  you 
will  find  yourselves  obstructed  by  the  ab- 
solute refusal  of  every  metropolitan  news- 
paper to  mention,  under  any  circumstances, 
anything  in  the  remotest  way  tending  to 
discredit  these  stores;  and  if,  in  spite  of 
this  obstacle,  you  attempt  to  proceed,  you 
will  find  yourselves  obstructed  along  a 
hundred  paths  by  powers  commercial,  legal, 
juridical,  social,  and  possibly  even  ecclesi- 
astical. 

If  general  social  conditions  have  improved 
under  the  cumulative  effects  of  your  earnest 
efforts  these  last  twenty  years  there  should 
be  less  need  for  benevolent  institutions. 
Yet  in  the  thirteen  years  1890-1903,  2,004 
of  these  were  founded — an  increase  of  very 
nearly    100    per    cent.     It    can    hardly    be 

6  [81] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

contended  that  they  were  founded  and  have 
been  maintained  solely  to  give  employment 
to  mechanics  and  attendants;  and  the  only 
other  cause  for  this  increase  is  that  it  reflects 
what  is  considered  to  be  a  rapidly  growing 
social  need. 

Then,  too,  if  you  practical  men  have 
added  anything  in  the  last  twenty  years 
to  the  joys  of  living,  the  9,000  or  10,000  per- 
sons who  will  destroy  themselves  during 
the  coming  year  would  doubtless  be  glad 
to  hear  of  it.  And,  if  you  have  added  any- 
thing to  the  security  of  human  life  from 
deliberate  attack,  the  news  will  be  exceed- 
ingly welcome  to  the  8,000  or  9,000  persons 
destined  to  be  murdered  within  the  next 
365  days.  According  to  the  careful  figures 
of  the  Chicago  Tribune,  the  number  of 
suicides  increased  from  1885  to  1903  more 
than  five  times  as  fast  as  the  population. 
The  yearly  average  for  the  three  years 
1881-83  was  688;  for  the  three  years  1904- 
06,  9,782,  or  fourteen  times  as  great.  Mur- 
ders and  homicides  have  also  increased  at 
a  frightful  rate.     The  mean  for  the  three 

[82] 


TO   THE  REFORMERS 

years  1881-83,  was  1,477;  for  the  three 
years  1904-06,  9,015.  Some  of  this  increase 
may  be  apparent  only,  due  in  some  degree 
to  the  less  efficient  news  service  of  the 
Tribune  twenty-five  years  ago.  But  the 
increase  from  a  later  time,  say  1890,  is, 
with  the  exception  of  four  abnormal  years, 
1894-97,  rapid  and  fairly  regular. 

The  computable  benefits  of  your  policy 
are  hardly  observable  here.  Where,  then, 
must  we  look  for  evidence?  Frankly,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  say.  You  have  insti- 
tuted the  initiative  and  referendum  in  a 
number  of  places,  but  the  results  in  im- 
proved legislation  and  in  the  elimination 
of  graft  have  not  been  wholly  convincing. 
You  have  passed  some  inheritance  laws,  but 
their  effect  on  the  poverty  of  the  mass  and 
on  the  concentration  of  wealth  eludes  the 
sharpest  eyes.  You  have  passed  a  national 
contract-labor  law,  and  it  is  violated  all  the 
time.  The  successive  irrigation  and  reclama- 
tion measures  have  doubtless  been  more 
fruitful  of  observable  benefits  to  a  part  of 
the  people  and  a  part  of  the  country  than 

[83] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

any  other  work  that  has  been  done;  but 
whatever  local  blessings  have  come  from 
them,  it  remains  to  be  proved  that  they  have 
had  the  slightest  degree  of  influence  on  the 
general  state  of  social  conditions.  Some 
general  social  benefit  has  indubitably  been 
gained  from  the  passage  of  the  pure-food 
law.  We  are  not  so  elaborately  poisoned 
to-day  as  we  were  four  years  ago.  But  a 
pure-food  law  is  one  of  those  fundamental 
necessities  which  come,  like  manhood  suf- 
frage and  popular  education,  because  they 
cannot  be  withheld.  The  poisoning  of  food 
and  drink  is  an  evil  from  which  all  suffer — 
workers,  retainers,  "middle  class,"  and  to 
some  extent  magnate  class.  The  struggle 
for  a  pure-food  law  does  not  involve  a  con- 
test solely  between  working  class  and  capital- 
ist class;  and  the  enactment  of  such  a  law 
has  therefore  been  possible.  No  one  sup- 
poses this  law  to  be  as  rigorous  or  as  com- 
prehensive as  it  should  be;  and  no  one 
supposes  that  it  is  being  enforced  as  it 
should  be.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  to  a 
considerable  extent  violated  and  evaded  all 

[84] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

the  time.  But  the  law  itself  may  be  con- 
ceded to  be  a  positive  social  gain.  And 
that  is  about  the  record  of  reformation, 
as  far  as  is  to  be  seen. 

In  his  recent  work  on  Pragmatism,  the 
late  William  James  quotes  with  approval 
a  passage  from  Mr.  Gilbert  K.  Chester- 
ton, as  follows:  "There  are  some  people 
— and  I  am  one  of  them — who  think  that 
the  most  practical  and  important  thing 
about  a  man  is  still  his  view  of  the  universe." 
And  Professor  James  adds,  addressing  one 
of  his  audiences:  "You  each  have  a  philos- 
ophy. .  .  .  The  most  interesting  and  im- 
portant thing  about  you  is  the  way  in  which 
it  determines  the  perspective  in  your  several 
worlds." 

We,  too,  say,  "The  most  interesting  and 
important  and  practical  thing  about  you  is 
your  view,  not  of  the  universe,  but  of  the 
planet — your  philosophy  of  history — your 
interpretation  of  social  events,  past  and 
present."  You  may  have  a  purely  ideal- 
istic philosophy — you  may  think  that  social 
changes  are  the  result  of  notions  got  from 

[85] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

heaven  knows  where  of  what  should  be 
and  what  should  not  be.  You  may  have 
the  great-man  theory,  that  social  changes 
are  the  result  of  the  interposition  of  wise 
or  forceful  men  in  the  affairs  of  people  and 
nations;  and  you  may,  in  the  midst  of  your 
very  practical  efforts,  lay  the  flattering 
unction  to  your  souls  that  you  are  yourselves 
among  the  great  and  wise.  You  may  have 
any  one  of  a  half-dozen  such  interpretations, 
and  whatever  one  you  cling  to  will  of  course 
affect  your  attitude  and  your  conduct  with 
regard  to  social  changes. 

But  one  social  interpretation  alone  ex- 
plains the  riddles  of  history.  The  solution 
of  the  problems  of  physical  science  accords 
no  more  closely  with  the  hypothesis  of 
evolution  than  does  the  solution  of  social 
problems  accord  with  this  hypothesis.  It 
is  the  economic  interpretation  of  history, 
with  its  inescapable  corollary  of  the  class 
struggle.  The  futility  of  your  efforts  these 
many  years  is  explained  by  this  interpreta- 
tion, and  it  is  explained  by  no  other. 

Year  after  year  you  devote  your  labors  to 

[86] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

one  after  another  of  many  specific  aims. 
But  you  are  unable  to  show  visible  results 
for  your  toil.  Thwarted  in  one  endeavor, 
you  as  eagerly  turn  to  another.  But  always 
and  everywhere  the  results  for  you  are  about 
the  same.  You  succeed  in  few,  if  any,  in- 
stances in  adding  a  single  good  to  the  gen- 
eral mass  of  mankind. 

And  why  are  your  efforts  so  uniformly 
barren  of  achievement?  They  are  futile 
because  you  refuse  to  recognize  the  terms 
and  conditions  of  the  social  struggle.  The 
struggle  fundamentally  is  not  against  indi- 
viduals, no  matter  how  evil  they  may  be. 
It  is  not  fundamentally  a  struggle  to  termi- 
nate this  or  that  incidental  privilege  or  power 
which  certain  individuals  or  groups  have 
seized.  It  is  a  struggle  against  a  class  as 
the  representative  and  chief  support  of  a 
brutal  economic  system,  and  its  meaning 
is  the  abolition  of  that  system.  The  nature 
of  the  struggle  is  for  the  time  somewhat 
obscured  by  the  desperate  protest  of  the 
"middle  class"  against  extinction.  But  the 
real  underlying  factors  of  that  struggle  are 

[87] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

the  movement  of  general  economic  processes 
to  their  culmination,  the  awakening  aggres- 
sion of  the  working  class  against  private 
ownership,  and  the  stubborn  determination 
of  the  ruling  class  to  yield  no  point.  The 
chimeras  which  you  insist  upon  fighting, 
and  which  you  name  variously,  each  man 
after  his  wont,  as  Monopoly  or  Special 
Privilege  or  Discrimination,  are  merely  the 
projected  shadows  of  this  great  power,  the 
ruling  class.  It  is  a  class  fortified  in  ma- 
terial possessions,  in  law,  in  administration, 
in  ecclesiastical  and  educational  institutions, 
and  yet  more  in  the  awe  and  terror  which 
it  inspires  and  the  subservience  which  it 
compels  in  ministers,  educators  and  poli- 
ticians, as  well  as  in  the  common  mass. 
It  cannot  be  successfully  combated  by 
guerrilla  attacks  waged  against  shadows. 
From  its  well-nigh  impregnable  fortifica- 
tions it  laughs  at  your  desultory  warfare. 
A  Socialist  vote  of  one  million  in  a  national 
election  would  jar  it  to  its  inmost  recesses, 
and  cause  it  to  offer  a  hundred  concessions 
of  one  sort  or  another.     But  nothing  that 

[88] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

you  are  likely  to  do  or  say  will  cause  it  to 
offer  a  single  concession.  To  what  it  has  it 
holds  on  with  an  iron  grip,  and  it  means 
never  to  let  go.  The  capitalist  class  can  be 
successfully  combated  only  by  another  class 
overmatching  it  in  numbers,  in  unity  and 
in  determination. 

When  we  say  this  capitalist  class  can  be 
overthrown  only  by  another  class,  we  mean 
a  class  opposed  to  it  in  instincts,  in  interests 
and  in  aims.  The  poor,  demoralized  and 
disintegrating  faction  popularly  known  as 
the  "middle  class,"  which  is  now  in  active 
rebellion  against  its  more  successful  partners, 
cannot  do  it.  It  has  not  the  numbers,  it  has 
not  the  material  power,  it  has  not  the  funda- 
mental opposition  of  interests.  This  class 
is  suffering  a  constantly  narrowing  scope 
of  action  and  a  decrease  of  revenue.  It 
blindly  protests  against  the  increasing  dom- 
inance of  the  big  capitalists,  and  it  wants 
instituted  a  measure  of  restriction  upon 
wealth-getting  which  will  give  it  a  better 
chance  to  compete. 

But  the  members  of  this  class,  however 

[89] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

they  may  oppose  trusts  and  corporations, 
are  a  unit  on  the  preservation  of  the  reigning 
order.  They  have  an  equal  appetite  to 
that  of  the  magnates  for  rent,  interest  and 
profit;  and  in  opposing  the  magnates  they 
reveal  only  a  desire  for  a  larger  share  of  the 
surplus.  In  defense  of  the  existing  system 
the  petty  trader  will  shed  his  heart's  blood, 
or  in  extremity  even  his  money,  as  freely  as 
will  the  greatest  of  magnates.  He  will  con- 
sent gradually  to  municipal  ownership,  and 
even  to  national  ownership,  only  as  he 
becomes  firmly  convinced  that  any  share  in 
the  private  ownership  of  utilities  is  impossi- 
ble to  himself  and  his  fellows.  But  all  the 
other  avenues  of  exacting  rent,  interest  and 
profit,  he  wants  left  open,  that  he  may 
batten  upon  them  at  will.  The  reform  for 
which  he  clamors  is  the  putting  of  a  handi- 
cap on  the  man  who  plays  his  own  game 
more  successfully  than  can  he. 

The  source  of  virtually  all  opportunist 
measures  is  this  "middle  class,"  or  the 
individuals  or  groups  hanging  upon  its 
flanks  and  accepting  its  ethical  standards. 

[90] 


TO  THE   REFORMERS 

Every  such  measure  is  doomed  to  failure, 
just  as  the  class  itself  is  doomed  to  extinction. 
The  inexorable  processes  now  at  work, 
which  in  spite  of  unceasing  clamor  and  of 
heroic  opposition  have  lodged  virtually  nine- 
tenths  of  the  nation's  wealth  in  the  hands  of 
a  class  numbering  with  its  families  less  than 
a  million  persons,  will  go  on  to  their  culmi- 
nation of  a  complete  absorption  of  wealth, 
unless  checked  by  the  working  class,  fight- 
ing under  the  banner  of  Socialism.  Those 
processes  cannot  be  stayed,  they  cannot  be 
broken  down,  by  your  desultory  attacks 
upon  so-called  "lines  of  least  resistance." 
There  are  no  points  of  least  resistance  in 
the  fortifications  of  this  class;  what  seem 
so  are  merely  the  ambushes  or  quicksands 
into  which  you  are  lured  and  wherein  your 
efforts  are  swallowed  up  and  lost.  There 
are  no  short  cuts,  there  is  no  royal  road, 
to  the  goal.  The  Socialist  way  is  the  long 
way,  but  it  is  the  only  way.  And  in  per- 
petually seeking  by-paths  to  victory  instead 
of  taking  places  in  the  ranks,  you  are  but 
repeating  the  actions  of  those  unprosperous 

[91] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

adventurers  of  the  early  days  on  this  Conti- 
nent who  sought  the  North-west  Passage 
in  every  creek  and  inlet,  or  who  loaded  their 
vessels  with  iron  pyrites  for  gold,  when  they 
should  have  been  aiding  in  the  work  of 
building  up  the  colonies. 

This  giant  power,  the  capitalist  class,  has 
its  ramifications  everywhere.  At  some  time, 
at  some  place,  in  your  efforts,  you  come 
squarely  against  it  in  one  form  or  another, 
and  you  cannot  make  a  further  move.  You 
are  checkmated,  and  you  wonder  why.  It 
is  because  this  power,  sure  of  itself  and 
unapprehensive  of  harm  from  you,  is  de- 
termined to  concede  to  you  nothing  that  is 
of  value  to  itself.  What  it  concedes,  exam- 
ine, and  you  will  find  a  Greek  gift.  You 
think  you  have  won  a  victory  when  you 
have  succeeded  in  passing  some  trifling 
measure  of  restriction.  But  a  year  or  five 
years  later  you  find  that  the  very  evils  you 
had  supposed  corrected  have  continued 
unchecked.  The  measures  of  reform  which 
you  sometimes  enact  it  immediately  turns 
to  its  own  advantage.     Or  when  in  those 

[92] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

rare  cases,  by  the  kindly  interposition  of 
Providence,  some  measure  of  yours  is  per- 
mitted actually  to  stop  a  certain  form  of 
exaction,  you  find  that  new  and  greater 
exactions  have  broken  out  in  a  score  of 
other  places.  This  power  is  greater  than 
legislatures  or  courts,  greater  than  even  the 
most  strenuous  of  executives.  It  is  insatiate 
in  its  desire,  and  it  has  no  fear  of  anything 
in  heaven  or  on  earth  but  the  Socialist 
movement. 

The  class  destined  to  overthrow  this 
capitalist  class  is  already  on  the  field,  and 
is  slowly  forming  itself  into  militant  array. 
We  Socialists  are  its  vanguard  and  its 
drill-masters,  and  carefully,  earnestly,  but, 
alas!  not  always  patiently,  we  are  bringing 
it  forward  and  whipping  it  into  shape  for 
its  appointed  work.  Unfortunately,  it  is 
cursed  with  ignorance,  timidity  and  moral 
inertia.  It  is  unsophisticated,  and  is  sus- 
ceptible alike  to  the  wiles  of  cajolery  and 
to  the  panic  of  fear.  Its  instincts  are  just, 
but  it  is  as  yet  too  timorous  to  trust  fully 
the  validity  of  its  instincts.     It  still  mistakes 

[93] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

benevolence  for  justice.  It  still  looks  to  its 
smooth-spoken  enemies  and  to  its  faint- 
hearted friends  for  advice.  Its  mood  alter- 
nates between  credulity  and  suspicion,  for 
it  is  attracted  by  false  lights  and  it  is  usually 
betrayed. 

But  this  class,  for  all  its  present  defects, 
has  vast  latent  powers  of  self-reformation 
and  upbuilding.  It  learns  by  experience — 
a  thing  the  ruling  class  rarely  does;  and 
its  experiences  in  this  day  of  capitalist 
supremacy  are  of  a  sort  which  tend  ever  to 
give  it  a  better  understanding  of  its  environ- 
ment, a  closer  unity,  a  greater  determination 
and  a  higher  ideal  of  its  mission.  From 
every  repulse  it  returns  upon  itself,  gaining 
new  strength  and  a  riper  knowledge.  Year 
by  year  it  sees  more  clearly  the  futility  of 
its  earlier  modes  of  warfare  and  comes 
more  generally  to  accept  the  tactics  of 
its  Socialist  vanguard.  There  are  moment- 
ary reactions  from  this  tendency  here  and 
there,  but  the  whole  movement  of  the  work- 
ing class  throughout  the  civilized  world  is 
increasingly  toward  Socialism. 

[94] 


TO  THE  REFORMERS 

It  is  now  time  that  you  men  of  earnest 
purposes  and  of  great  energies,  who  have 
yet  spent  your  lives  in  endeavors  barren  of 
result,  should  recognize  these  truths.  You 
may  find  it  pleasanter  to  dwell  in  the  palace 
of  illusions,  and  to  think  that  efforts  such  as 
yours  must  be  efficacious,  no  matter  what  the 
unalterable  records  say.  But,  if  you  are 
willing  to  face  the  facts,  and  willing  also 
to  place  yourselves  where  your  efforts  will 
count  for  most;  if  you  are  willing  to  re- 
nounce the  praise  of  capitalist  retainers 
that  you,  as  opposed  to  the  visionary  Social- 
ists, are  "safe,  sane  and  conservative," 
then  you  will  forswear  your  past  affiliations, 
and  enlist  with  this  great  international 
movement,  the  arbiter  of  the  future. 


[95] 


CHAPTER  III 


TO   THE    RETAINERS 


You  retainers  and  servitors  of  the  men 
of  wealth — you  who  from  rostrum,  pulpit 
and  sanctum,  from  bar  and  bench,  defend 
the  existing  regime  and  oppose  the  struggles 
of  the  working  class  for  a  better  life;  you 
whose  business  it  is  to  find  a  practical,  a 
juridical,  an  ethical  and  even  a  spiritual 
sanction  for  things  as  they  exist,  and  who 
voice  the  cheap  moralities  which  are  the 
reflex  of  the  interests  of  the  class  that  em- 
ploys you — there  is  a  word  to  say  to  you 
which  needs  to  be  spoken.  Upon  those 
who  take  part  in  the  forward  movement  of 
the  time  no  more  pressing  duty  is  laid  than 
that  of  telling  you  in  plain  words  what 
millions  of  men  are  thinking  of  you. 

You  are  honest  in  that  your  expressions 
are  the  direct  results  of  your  means  of  mak- 

[96] 


TO  THE  RETAINERS 

ing  a  living.  You  serve,  as  your  intellectual 
forebears  have  ever  served,  as  the  expound- 
ers of  the  special  moralities  which  the  ruling 
class  has  ever  sought  to  impose  upon  the 
ruled.  But  you  are  dishonest  in  that  you 
do  not  acknowledge  the  class  character  of 
your  teachings,  and  in  that  you  seek  to  give 
a  social  and  general  sanction  to  what  is 
purely  an  expression  of  the  needs  of  your 
employers.  "Wherever,"  says  John  Stuart 
Mill,  "there  is  an  ascendant  class,  a  large 
portion  of  the  morality  emanates  from  its 
class  interests  and  its  class  feelings  of  supe- 
riority." And  as  your  predecessors  formu- 
lated the  interests  of  feudal  baron  or  slave- 
holder into  ethical  precepts  binding  upon 
villein  or  slave,  so  do  you  formulate  the 
interests  of  the  capitalist  class  into  an 
ethical  code  binding  upon  wage-earners. 

Yours  is  a  servile  ethics — an  ethics  handed 
down  to  you  from  above,  to  be  disseminated 
among  those  below.  You  do  not  make 
discoveries  in  morality.  Such  discoveries 
are  made  for  you.  It  is  not  until,  in  the 
gradual    flux    of   conditions,    the   teaching 

[97] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

of  a  special  morality  comes  to  be  necessary 
to  the  ruling  class,  that  you  learn  what  is 
moral  and  what  immoral. 

How  many  of  you  ever  realized  that  the 
"open  shop"  was  eternally  bound  up  with 
the  True,  the  Good  and  the  Beautiful  until 
the  recent  collective  reaction  of  the  employ- 
ers against  trade-unions  forced  it  upon  your 
attention  ?  Might  not  the  "  heroism  of  the 
scab"  have  remained  to  you  an  unappre- 
hended virtue,  a  moral  flower  "born  to 
blush  unseen,"  if  the  general  warfare  against 
the  unions  these  last  few  years  had  not 
forced  you  to  a  recognition  of  the  strike- 
breaker's value  to  the  factory  lords?  You 
extol,  in  fervid  phrase,  the  "right  to  work," 
and  protest  against  its  infringement.  But 
does  the  real  "right  to  work"  ever 
touch  your  consciousness?  That  in  1900 
6,468,964  workers  in  gainful  occupations 
were  unemployed  for  more  than  one  month; 
that  nearly  half  of  these  were  unemployed 
for  from  one  to  three  months,  and  three- 
eighths  of  them  for  from  four  to  six  months, 
is  small  part  of  your  distress.     You  have 

[98  J 


TO   THE   RETAINERS 

discovered  only  the  evil  of  the  unemploy- 
ment of  that  infinitesimal  fraction  who  are 
prevented  from  displacing  union  men.  The 
enormous  volume,  the  intense  degree,  of 
privation  which  these  figures  reveal  have 
little  or  no  meaning  for  you.  That  millions 
of  human  beings  may  sicken  and  die  through 
want  of  the  barest  comforts  of  existence  is 
a  consideration  you  leave  to  others.  You 
are  troubled  only  by  that  minor  part  of 
the  problem  which  touches  adversely  the 
interests  of  your  employers. 

You  prate,  too,  of  "violence."  The 
frightful  violence,  indirect  though  it  be, 
by  which  every  year  more  than  60,000  beings 
are  hurled  to  death  and  some  1,600,000 
seriously  injured,  is  not  what  you  mean. 
That  the  butchery  of  the  Civil  War  is  being 
repeated,  year  after  year,  throughout  the 
industrial  plant  of  the  nation,  does  not  move 
you.  You  preach  no  homilies  upon  this 
form  of  violence;  you  do  not  talk  of  it  to 
your  classes  in  economics;  you  give  it 
small  mention,  if  any,  in  your  platitudinous 
editorials  and  in  your  pious  sermons.     Nor 

[99] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

are  you  moved  by  that  other  form  of  violence 
— though  still  more  indirect,  yet  still  more 
fatal — the  forcing  of  human  beings  to  work 
at  tasks  which  kill  slowly  by  poison,  by 
disease  or  torture,  instead  of  mercifully  at 
a  blow,  and  which  annually  claims  an 
uncomputed  army  of  victims.  All  this  you 
pass  by  as  the  necessary  and  inevitable 
fortune  of  the  poor,  to  be  borne  by  them 
in  patience.  That  is,  when  you  notice  it 
at  all ;  for  many,  if  not  most  of  you,  habitu- 
ally shut  your  eyes  and  ears  to  the  sufferings 
and  cries  of  outraged  humanity. 

But  when  you  see  or  hear  of  a  union 
workman  attacking  the  man  who  has  taken 
his  job,  all  your  latent  indignation  is  awak- 
ened; you  cry  out  in  horror,  and  demand 
"a  wall  of  bayonets  from  Washington  to 
Wilkesbarre,"  or  some  other  mode  of  instant 
and  rigorous  repression.  The  robbery,  the 
torture  and  the  slaughter  of  a  race  mean  little 
to  you,  because  these  are  the  price  which 
must  be  paid  for  the  rent,  interest  and  profit 
of  the  class  which  keeps  you  going.  But 
the  incidental  violence  of  the  striker  means 

[100] 


TO  THE  RETAINERS 

to  you  a  crime  against  humanity,  against  the 
Almighty.  Did  you  ever  dig  down  into  your 
inner  selves  to  try  to  discover  the  reason 
why  your  indignation  is  spontaneously  awak- 
ened by  the  one  thing  and  not  by  the  other  ? 
It  is  safe  to  say  that  you  never  did.  For 
then  you  would  have  discovered  that  it  is 
because  you  have  not  developed  a  social 
conscience.  You  have  only  a  servile  class 
conscience.  You  absorb  and  reflect  the 
interests,  the  instincts  and  the  feelings  of 
the  class  from  which  you  draw  your  sus- 
tenance. And  whenever  the  interests  of 
that  class  are  trenched  upon,  as  when  a 
workman  is  prevented  from  working  more 
cheaply  than  another,  you  are  shocked  as 
by  an  electric  current. 

You  were  long  in  awakening  to  the  evil 
of  child  labor.  Many  of  you  are  not  yet 
awakened.  Your  forebears  in  England 
were  equally  obtuse,  and  they  busied  them- 
selves for  years  in  inventing  grave  objec- 
tions to  the  proposed  reforms.  Nothing  was 
better  for  young  persons  than  work,  they 
said.     Education  was  on  the  whole  harm- 

[101] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

ful  for  the  children  of  the  working  class, 
because  it  tended  to  unfit  them  for  the 
station  which  God  and  the  factory  lords 
had  ordained  for  them.  And  idleness,  even 
for  the  very  young,  was  worse,  since  it 
made  them  the  prey  of  vicious  habits  and 
engendered  in  them  an  ungodliness  of  heart. 
Many  of  you  who  live  in  the  factory  regions 
of  the  South  are  to-day  repeating  these  old 
inanities.  And  for  those  of  you  who  live 
in  the  North,  you  had  best  look  and  see  if 
an  economic  cause  is  not  back  of  your  sud- 
den awakening.  Until  the  needs  of  man- 
ufacturers in  the  North  (where  child  labor 
has  been  restricted  largely  by  the  influence 
of  labor  unions  upon  legislation)  demanded 
an  interference  with  the  cheaper  production 
of  the  South,  how  many  of  you  had  ever 
troubled  yourselves  regarding  this  frightful 
evil?  Not  many,  and  for  that  matter,  not 
many  of  you  are  worrying  about  it  even 
now.  For,  to  the  manufacturers  and  traders 
of  the  North  the  restriction  of  child  labor 
is  not  an  unmixed  blessing.  What  is  wanted 
is  just  enough  legislation  to  bring  about 
[102] 


TO  THE  RETAINERS 

an  equilibrium  between  the  cost  of  pro- 
duction in  each  of  the  two  sections.  It  may 
go  too  far  and  seriously  inconvenience  the 
gleaning  of  profits.  And  so  long  as  this 
is  so,  there  is  abundant  motive  for  many  of 
you  keeping  quiet.  To  such  of  you  the 
whole  industrial  world  may  turn,  pivoted 
upon  a  child's  heart,  while  you,  your  "glassy 
essence"  reflecting  only  the  interests  of  your 
employers,  remain  serenely  oblivious. 

No,  you  have  small  need  and  less  inclina- 
tion to  prosecute  discoveries  in  social  moral- 
ity. Your  trade  is  rather  to  excuse  or 
sanction  the  thing  that  is,  to  allay  the  unrest 
of  the  masses,  and  to  denounce  the  "wicked 
agitators"  who  would  fain  awaken  the 
people  to  a  sense  of  their  power.  It  is  a 
good  world,  you  say.  Cautiously  you  admit 
that  it  is  not  what  it  might  be;  but  if  all 
would  invariably  do  the  right  and  proper 
thing,  you  say,  all  would  be  well.  And  so, 
by  tongue  and  pen,  you  coax  and  persuade 
the  toilers  to  keep  at  their  plodding  tasks, 
to  bear  with  patience  hunger  and  cold, 
illness  and  wounds,  and  the  thousand  priva- 

[103] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

tions  which  are  their  inescapable  lot.  Your 
employers  must  reap  their  rent,  interest  and 
profit.  And  how  can  they  reap  unless  the 
masses  sow  ? 

The  seditious  and  subversive  agitators  stir 
them  to  complain.  But  for  each  complaint 
you  have  a  ready  specific.  Is  life,  as  they 
say,  under  the  sway  of  the  prevailing  regime, 
merely  a  game,  a  lottery,  a  universal  Monte 
Carlo?  Then  "beat  the  game,"  you  say. 
From  your  university  chairs,  your  rostrums, 
your  pulpits  and  your  editorial  desks,  you 
blandly  tell  us,  just  as  do  the  runners  and 
"cappers"  of  a  faro  bank,  that  this  or  that 
plan  or  "system"  will  assuredly  "do  the 
trick."  Now  it  is  Morality,  and  now  So- 
briety, now  it  is  Faithfulness,  and  now 
Hard  Work;  now  Thrift  and  now  Efficiency. 
And  though  many  of  you  know  in  your  hearts 
that  none  of  these  things  will  do,  yet  still 
you  proffer  these  counsels  to  the  generations 
that  toil  and  suffer  and  pass  away  and  find 
no  answer  to  the  painful  riddle  of  life. 

Not  in  Morality,  as  you  preach  it,  does 
the  working  class  find  its  salvation.     For 

[104]  | 


TO  THE  RETAINERS 

even  in  the  best  ages  the  sleets  and  snows 
of  misfortune  have  fallen  alike  upon  evil 
and  good;  while  in  the-  worst  ages,  given 
up  to  competitive  and  fratricidal  strife, 
morality  becomes  a  hostage  given  to  for- 
tune, leaving  the  victory  to  be  won  only 
by  the  unscrupulous,  the  strong  and  the 
inhuman.  Nor  is  Sobriety  other  than  a 
trumpery  counsel  which  blinds  men's  eyes 
to  real  wrongs.  That  men,  and  especially 
workingmen,  might  all  desist  from  strong 
drink  is  a  hope  which  all  may  justly  hold. 
But  that  such  abstinence  would  have  other 
than  the  slightest  effect  upon  the  present 
distribution  of  the  world's  goods  is  delusion, 
or  something  worse.  Faithfulness,  as  you 
mean  it — an  unquestioning  devotion  of  the 
worker  to  the  interests  and  aims  of  his 
employer — is  not  only  not  a  virtue,  but  a  vice. 
For  it  makes  men  partners  in  their  own 
exploitation;  it  blinds  them  to  the  funda- 
mental antagonism  of  interest  between  them- 
selves and  their  employers.  Let,  indeed,  the 
workman  play  the  game  fairly,  as  the  game 
is  played ;  let  him  render  a  fair  sum  of  efficient 

[105] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

toil  for  a  prevailing  rate  of  wages.  Under 
the  rules  of  the  game  he  must  always  pro- 
duce by  his  toil  a  far  greater  value  than  he 
receives  in  wages,  else  capitalism  could  not 
endure  for  a  moment.  And  the  worker 
must  accept  the  rules  or  he  cannot  take 
part.  But  to  ask  him  to  merge  his  interest 
in  that  of  his  employer  is  to  ask  of  him 
a  subservience  which  lowers  him  from  the 
status  of  a  free  man  to  that  of  a  serf. 

Nor  is  it  by  means  of  Efficiency,  as  you 
call  it,  that  the  salvation  of  the  working 
class  is  to  come.  For  by  it  you  mean,  not 
social  efficiency,  the  ordering  and  regulating 
of  the  processes  of  production  to  make  them 
most  fruitful.  You  mean  individual  ef- 
ficiency, the  sharpening  of  beak  and  claw 
for  a  more  intensive  and  cruel  warfare. 
Surely,  though,  this  remedy  has  all  the 
hollowness  and  futility  of  the  others.  Is 
efficiency  possible  to  but  a  part  of  the  race  ? 
It  must  be  so,  since  you  are  ever  declaiming 
about  the  incompetent,  who  have  none  but 
themselves  to  blame  for  their  poverty. 
Then  efficiency  can  promise  but  a  Presby- 

[106] 


TO  THE  RETAINERS 

terian  sort  of  salvation — to  the  elect.  Or  is 
it  attainable  by  virtually  all?  If  so,  what 
change  would  it  work  in  the  inequalities 
and  privations  of  life?  Small  change,  in- 
deed; for  were  we  all  the  efficient  equals 
of  Mr.  Morgan  or  Mr.  Rockefeller,  the 
rough  work  of  the  world  would  still  have 
to  be  done,  and  the  doers  would  have  to 
be  those  who  rightly,  according  to  the 
doctrine,  should  be  doing  something  better. 
And  then  did  you  ever  consider  the  enor- 
mous and  increasing  disparity  of  numbers 
between  wage-earners  and  bosses?  There 
are,  for  instance,  more  than  1,450,000  rail- 
way men,  and  not  6,000  of  these  are  general 
officers.  If  the  1,444,000  developed  an 
efficiency  equal  to  that  of  their  superiors, 
would  they  then  all  become  general  officers  ? 
Where  are  the  places  for  them,  and  who 
would  do  the  hard  work  ?  Your  "  efficiency  " 
is  only  a  lure  which  you  use  to  keep  alive 
in  the  worker  the  credulous  hope  of  individ- 
ual success. 

Nor  is  Thrift,  nor  is  Hard  Work,  the  way 
out.     Millions  of  men  have  toiled  faithfully 

[107] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

all  their  lives,  and  other  millions  have  both 
toiled  and  saved,  only  to  die  in  poignant 
want.  The  product  of  men's  toil,  and  no 
less  of  their  thrift,  is  drawn  into  other  hands, 
and  the  workers  close  their  lives  in  poverty. 
In  London,  where  the  processes  of  the 
capitalist  system  are  allowed  a  virtual  free 
play,  one  person  in  every  four  of  the  entire 
population  dies  on  some  form  of  public 
charity.  In  New  York,  where  the  struggle 
is  in  some  measure  modified,  one  person 
in  every  seven  is  buried  in  Potter's  Field. 
And  were  it  not  for  the  intervention  of 
private  charity,  of  benevolent  societies,  of 
labor  unions,  and  of  political  leaders,  it  is 
possible  that  the  number  of  pauper  burials 
would  approximate  that  of  London.  To 
preach  toil  to  men  who  have  always  toiled 
when  they  could,  and  who  see  before  them 
only  the  pauper's  grave,  is  a  shameless 
mockery.  And  then  did  you  ever  stop  to 
inquire  where  the  work  which  you  urge 
men  to  do  is  to  come  from?  Do  you  not 
know  that  the  needs  of  the  present  system 
require  an  ever-increasing  army  of  the  un- 

[108] 


TO  THE  RETAINERS 

employed  ?  And  do  you  not  know  that  the 
figures  show  incontestably  this  growing 
army?  Or  are  you  too  fatuous  in  your 
service  to  your  masters  to  study  the  figures 
and  to  learn  their  lesson  ? 

No,  none  of  the  proffered  "systems" 
will  beat  the  game  of  the  great  industrial 
Monte  Carlo.  They  have  all  been  played, 
over  and  over  again,  and  though  here  and 
there  an  individual  winning  is  made,  the 
masses  remain  plundered  and  poor.  And 
the  most  conspicuous  result  of  your  ex- 
hortation and  advice  is  to  aid  in  keeping 
them  so. 

Is  life  not  only  a  game,  but  in  its  fiercer 
phases  a  battle,  as  the  agitators  say  ?  Is  it 
true  that  thousands  are  struck  down  in  death 
and  hundreds  of  thousands  put  out  of  the 
fighting  by  wounds  and  disease?  Then, 
say  you,  seek  a  safer  place  in  the  battle, 
exercise  your  freedom  of  choice,  and  avoid 
those  occupations  that  are  dangerous.  Did 
you  ever,  even  for  a  moment,  put  yourself  in 
the  worker's  place  that  you  might  consider 
the  degree  of  his  choice  ?     Do  you  not  know 

[109] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

that  such  is  the  pressure  upon  him  that  he 
must  seek  work  where  he  can  get  it,  what- 
ever the  conditions?  That  for  the  bare 
chance  of  earning  his  bread  he  must  often 
face  hazards  of  maiming  and  death  vastly 
greater  than  those  of  a  soldier  in  the  blood- 
iest of  wars  ? 

And  if  your  own  tasks  were  equally 
dangerous,  could  you  meet  the  question 
with  such  easy  complacence  ?  If  during 
every  year  1  out  of  every  8  of  you  were 
wounded,  and  1  out  of  every  133  killed, 
would  you  not  see  the  matter  in  a  different 
light?  These  are  the  average  figures  of 
casualties  among  trainmen  for  the  three 
years,  1906-08.  Or  suppose  that  only  1  in 
every  19  of  you  were  wounded,  and  only 
1  in  every  393  killed,  would  it  not  still  be 
a  lively  question  with  you  ?  These  are  the 
average  figures  for  the  million  and  a  quar- 
ter railway  employes  for  the  same  period. 
If  you  had  to  spend  your  working  hours 
amidst  unguarded  machinery;  if  you  were 
forced  to  breathe  air  clouded  with  metallic 
dust,  or  the  fluff  of  cotton,  silk  or  flax,  or 
[no] 


TO   THE   RETAINERS 

the  fumes  of  molten  white  lead,  would  you 
not  find  something  seriously  at  fault  with 
the  existing  regime  of  industry  ?  Doubtless 
you  would  not  strike.  For  you  have  small 
sense  of  a  community  of  interests  with  your 
fellows  of  like  tasks,  since  virtually  the  whole 
range  of  your  ethical  feeling  is  but  a  reflex 
of  the  interests  of  the  class  above  you.  Nor 
would  you  have  the  moral  courage  for 
such  an  act.  For  you  have  a  haunting  fear 
of  privation.  The  specter  of  poverty  which 
the  worker  knows  so  well,  which  appears 
at  his  cradle  and  follows  him  all  his  days, 
and  which  he  learns  by  familiarity  to  jest 
with  and  provoke,  is  to  you  a  monster  to 
be  kept  at  the  remotest  distance.  And  so 
you  would  not  tempt  privation  by  a  strike 
or  by  wild  talk  of  social  revolution.  But 
you  would  humbly  beg  for  better  things. 
Did  you  ever  pause  to  think  of  the  debt 
you  owe  the  workers  ?  In  a  million  fields, 
in  a  multitude  of  factories,  in  mines  and 
forests,  men,  women  and  even  little  children 
are  reaping  and  sowing,  hammering  and 
planing,  gathering  and  piecing  together  the 
[in] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

products  which  make  the  wealth  of  the 
world.  From  some  part  of  this  wealth,  a 
little  from  each  worker,  are  taken  and  as- 
sembled the  mites  that  make  the  enormous 
fund  which  society  puts  aside  for  your 
maintenance.  Though  the  state  or  the  mag- 
nates are  your  immediate  paymasters,  you 
are  in  reality  the  pensioners  of  the  working 
class.  The  workers  toil  at  hard  and  bitter 
tasks  that  you  may  be  employed  at  tasks 
which  are  light  and  congenial.  They  strive 
at  toil  which  slowly  warps  and  disfigures 
their  bodies  or  poisons  their  veins;  or  with 
a  frolic  welcome  they  brave  chances  greater 
than  those  of  a  soldier  in  the  field — and 
all  that  you  may  follow  your  pleasant 
vocations,  well  clad,  well  housed  and 
secure  from  harm.  Multitudes  are  chained 
to  a  deadening  monotony  of  labor,  rob- 
bed of  all  opportunity  of  initiative  and 
of  creative  expression — labor  which  slowly 
darkens  their  minds  and  benumbs  their 
souls — while  to  you  are  given  the  tasks 
in  the  products  of  which  you  may  en- 
shrine what  is   best  in  you.     They    grow 

[112] 


TO  THE   RETAINERS 

old  before  their  time,  and  they  die  at 
half  your  age.  Each  of  you  will  have 
seen,  before  you  have  passed  your  intel- 
lectual prime,  two  generations  of  toilers 
descend  to  the  grave.  The  fruit  of  their 
toil  has  been  gleaned  by  others,  and  to 
you  has  been  given  a  bounteous  share. 
All  that  you  have  is  from  them,  and 
what  return  do  you  make  for  it? 

They  do  not  begrudge  you  your  easier 
lives,  so  long  as  they  feel  that  you  are  render- 
ing a  service  to  the  race.  The  patient  en- 
durance of  the  poor  is  no  more  the  marvel 
of  the  world  than  is  their  devoted  sacrifice. 
The  workers  realize,  as  none  others  can 
realize,  what  has  been  denied  them,  and 
they  seek  to  secure  it  for  their  children. 
Every  instinct  which  develops  in  them  as  a 
necessary  outgrowth  of  their  lot  pleads  for 
an  infinite  extension  of  social  service.  And 
wherever  the  instincts  or  ideals  of  the  work- 
ing class  have  found  expression  through 
government,  they  have  manifested  them- 
selves in  the  amplest  provisions  for  learning 
and  the  arts.  "The  republic  has  no  use 
8  [113] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

for  savants"  was  an  apothegm  of  the  petty 
bourgeoisie,  never  of  the  proletariat. 

But  when  they  find  you  soothed  with  the 
"execrable  complacence  of  your  prosperity" 
and  proud  of  your  subservience  to  your 
capitalist  masters,  turning  upon  them  and 
rewarding  their  toil  for  you  with  sleek 
counsels  to  be  patient  and  to  endure,  their 
indignation  bursts  forth  in  a  torrent.  They 
hate,  they  despise  you.  Because  you  can 
be  happy  in  your  creative  work,  you  counsel 
them  to  find  pleasure  in  their  monotonous 
and  joyless  tasks.  Because  in  fashioning 
the  things  in  which  you  may  embody  your 
heart  and  soul,  and  no  less  your  material 
interests,  you  can  work  long  hours,  you 
urge  them  to  give  to  their  masters  long 
hours  at'  tasks  in  which  they  can  feel  no 
interest  and  which  rob  them  of  health  and 
life.  You  do  this  because  it  is  needful  to 
your  capitalist  masters  that  you  do  it. 

So  wholly  are  you  centered  in  your  tasks 
of  serving  your  masters  that  you  are  in- 
hibited from  developing  a  sympathetic  im- 
agination.    You  cannot  put  yourselves  in 

[114] 


TO  THE  RETAINERS 

the  workers'  places.  You  cannot  compre- 
hend their  lot,  nor  can  you  even  apprehend 
their  feeling.  You  are  thus  enabled  in  the 
same  moment  to  disavow  the  debt  you  owe 
them  and  to 

"Insult,  exult,  and  all  at  once, 
Over  the  wretched." 

What  Lear  felt  on  the  wild  heath,  as  he 
thought  of  the  "poor,  naked  wretches," 
whose  "houseless  heads,"  whose  "unfed 
sides,"  whose  "  loop'd  and  window' d  ragged- 
ness"  made  them  the  sport  and  prey  of  the 
elements,  never  comes  to  you.  The  hum- 
bled king  could  moan  out, 

"Oh,  I  have  ta'en 
Too  little  care  of  this!" 

But  you,  complacent  alike  in  your  pros- 
perity and  your  subservience,  can  only  turn 
upon  them  with  angry  impatience  and 
counsel  them  to  go  to  work  and  keep  quiet. 

With  what  eager  impulse  and  with  what 
compliant  will  do  you  make  yourselves  the 
defenders  of  the  present  scheme  of  things 
and  the  assailants  of  the  coming  order!  Now 

[115] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

that  in  every  civilized  land  the  working 
class,  sick  of  the  reign  of  cruelty  and  wrong, 
is  awakening  to  a  consciousness  of  its  power, 
and  to  a  determination  to  ordain  a  fairer 
life,  you  take  upon  yourselves  the  mission 
to  ridicule  its  aims  and  ideals,  and  to  dis- 
credit its  leaders. 

It  is  only  the  unsuccessful,  you  say,  who 
attack  our  existing  institutions.  You  can- 
not understand,  such  is  your  subservient 
complacence,  that  multitudes  among  this 
revolutionary  working  class  are  proud  of 
their  unsuccess  and  wear  it  as  a  badge  of 
honor.  Pray  you,  under  the  existing  scheme 
of  things,  how  many  and  what  quality  of 
men  achieve  "  success/'  and  what  must  they 
not  do  to  achieve  it?  It  is  not,  except  in 
rare  cases,  probity,  nor  truthfulness,  nor 
humaneness,  nor  fellow  service,  that  wins 
this  fallacious  good.  It  is,  in  the  majority 
of  cases,  grafting  and  lying,  fawning  and 
cringing,  selfishness  and  brutality,  restrained 
only  by  that  Chinese  ethical  standard,  the 
necessity  of  "saving  your  face,"  that  give 
victory  in  the  struggle.     And  the  men  who 

[116] 


TO  THE  RETAINERS 

are  seeking  the  overthrow  of  this  system 
disdain  to  make  use  of  these  means.  They 
leave  the  function  to  you.  They  do  not, 
like  your  bishops,  lend  their  presence  to 
Chambers  of  Commerce  at  banquet,  and 
give  to  the  gamblers  in  the  world's  wealth 
the  benediction  of  divine  favor.  They  do 
not,  like  your  Boards  of  Foreign  Missions, 
solicit  the  profits  of  law-breaking  and  theft 
for  their  propaganda,  and  promise  an  inter- 
cession at  the  throne  of  grace.  They  do 
not,  like  your  college  heads,  prescribe  the 
dainty  punishment  of  "social  ostracism" 
for  the  world's  robbers,  and  then  accept  the 
fruits  of  the  robbery,  crying  out  from  their 
gables,  "Bring  on  your  tainted  money!" 
Nor  do  they,  like  your  journalists,  make 
themselves  the  servile  lackeys  of  the  ruling 
class;  nor,  like  your  economists,  constitute 
themselves  the  secular  priests  of  capital, 
perpetually  renewing  their  character  of 
"pests  of  society  and  persecutors  of  the 
poor."  Many  of  them  might  be  "success- 
ful" if  they  chose  to  do  these  things. 
Rather  they  choose,  like  Francis  of  Assisi, 

[117] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

the  bride  Poverty,  instead  of  the  harlot  Suc- 
cess. And  so  you  are  right  in  your  statement. 
But  you  utter  your  own  condemnation  when 
you  speak  it. 

The  thing  which,  as  the  structural  basis 
of  a  fairer  life,  these  men  strive  for — the 
common  ownership  of  the  means  of  pro- 
duction— you  assail  with  sweeping  con- 
demnation. Few  of  you,  save  for  a  select 
group  among  the  teachers,  have  ever  so 
much  as  considered  the  proposal.  The 
identity  of  your  thought,  the  virtual  identity 
of  your  language,  when  you  speak  of  it, 
shows  unmistakably  that  you  draw  your 
pabulum  from  a  common  source.  Most 
of  you  would,  of  course,  assail  it  with  equal 
virulence  if  you  knew  more  about  it;  for 
your  instincts  and  beliefs  reflect  the  instincts 
and  beliefs  of  your  employers,  and  you  feel 
and  see  as  they.  But  knowing  the  subject 
no  better  than  you  do,  you  have  only  a  com- 
mon stock  of  phrases  which  you  employ  in 
its  condemnation. 

You  prate  of  the  folly  and  sin  of  "divid- 
ing up,"  willfully  ignorant  of  the  fact  that 

[118] 


TO  THE  RETAINERS 

what  these  men  propose  is  to  terminate 
the  enforced  dividing  up  which  everywhere 
prevails  to-day,  and  to  substitute  the  hold- 
ing of  productive  property  in  common. 
You  prate  of  a  certain  "menace  to  woman," 
blinding  yourselves  to  the  fact  that  the 
salvation  of  woman  is  to  be  found  alone  in 
her  economic  security,  and  that  under  our 
present  system,  whether  in  wedlock  or 
prostitution,  women  are  bought  in  the  open 
market  like  potatoes.  Actually  or  feignedly 
you  distress  yourselves  with  the  thought 
of  the  "coming  destruction  of  the  home," 
oblivious  of  that  visible  present  devastation 
of  the  home,  moral  as  well  as  material,  that 
goes  on  increasingly  and  inevitably  under 
the  processes  of  capitalist  accumulation. 

You  are  tenderly  solicitous  of  liberty,  too, 
and  fearful  that  this  revolutionary  working 
class  may  ordain  a  universal  slavery.  What 
liberty  has  any  part  of  the  working  class  to- 
day? And  what  liberty,  pray,  have  you, 
except  the  liberty  of  saying  and  doing  what 
is  expected  of  you  by  your  masters?  Few 
of  you  have  any  real  concept  of  liberty. 

[119] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

You  look  upon  it  as  only  the  absence  of 
governmental  restraint.  The  myriad  re- 
straints upon  freedom  of  belief,  speech  and 
action,  and  upon  self-development,  which 
are  the  inescapable  results  of  an  economic 
system  wherein  one  small  class  owns  all  the 
machinery  of  production,  do  not  occur  to 
you.  You  make  a  fetish  of  the  abstraction 
of  liberty;  the  substance  of  liberty  you  do 
not  know.  You  cannot  see  or  understand 
that  real  liberty  is  a  power,  a  capacity, 
mutually  exercised  and  mutually  secured. 
It  is  not  a  shadow,  but  a  substance.  "The 
restraints  of  Communism,"  as  the  younger 
Mill  well  said — and  he  was  at  the  time  no 
over-friendly  judge — "would  be  freedom  in 
comparison  with  the  present  condition  of 
the  majority  of  the  human  race." 

You  are  fearful,  too,  of  the  assertion  by 
the  working  class  of  the  equal  dignity  of 
labor.  You  find  beautiful  beyond  expres- 
sion the  sentiment  of  Pippa's  song: 

"All  service  ranks  the  same  with  God." 

Only  you  want  all  service  to  rank  the 

[120] 


TO  THE  RETAINERS 

same,  not  with  man,  but  with  God  alone. 
The  mere  suggestion  that  it  should  so  rank 
with  men  is  to  you  seditious  and  subversive 
of  our  glorious  institutions.  You  are  fear- 
ful no  less  of  "  confiscation."  Yet  now  that 
chattel  slavery  has  been  abolished  you  can 
thrill — such  of  you  as  yet  retain  some  resid- 
ual emotion  and  are  not  held  to  the  mere 
"passionless  pursuit  of  passionless  intelli- 
gence"— at  the  sentiment  of  Emerson's 
lines : 

"Pay  ransom  to  the  owner, 

And  fill  the  bag  to  the  brim. 
Who  is  the  owner  ?  The  slave  is  owner 
And  ever  was.     Pay  him!" 

But  these  words,  as  you  take  care  to 
know,  express  an  ethical  verdict  on  a  past 
age.  The  economic  sanction  for  the  rob- 
bery of  the  slave  has  gone,  and  with  it 
the  moral  sanction.  No  slave-holding  class 
now  dictates  to  you  the  special  moralities 
which  it  is  needful  that  you  inculcate  to 
the  robbed.  But  let  some  irreverent  person 
substitute  the  word  "toiler"  for  the  word 
"  slave,"  and  instantly  you  are  shocked  with 

[121] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

horror.  "Confiscation!"  you  shriek,  and 
every  instinct  of  antagonism  within  you 
awakens.  And  why?  Because,  though 
there  is  no  longer  a  slave-holding  class  to 
dictate  to  you  your  ethics,  there  is  a  ruling 
class  of  capitalist  owners  of  the  means  of 
production,  holding  to  you  the  relation  of 
masters,  and  by  the  interests  of  that  class 
your  ethical  standards  are  necessarily 
formed. 

For  your  lighter  hours  you  have  recourse 
to  tawdry  phrases  that  have  grown  thread- 
bare through  eager  handling.  "  You  cannot 
make  men  rich  by  legislation,"  "you  cannot 
make  men  good  by  legislation,"  "you  will 
destroy  initiative,"  "you  will  eliminate  indi- 
vidual responsibility,"  "you  will  reduce 
everybody  to  a  dead  level,"  are  some  of 
these  collocations  of  words.  And  how  you 
plume  yourselves  upon  your  superior  "culti- 
vation" as  you  look  upon  the  "lower  strat- 
um of  society"  and  tell  it  what  is  good  for 
it  and  what  to  avoid !  You  do  not  choose  to 
remember  that  in  every  age  "cultivation," 
as  manifested  by  your  class,  has  been  the 

[122] 


TO  THE  RETAINERS 

lackey  of  privilege  and  oppression;  and 
that  the  learning  which  was  made  possible 
for  you  by  the  toil  and  sacrifice  of  the 
workers,  you  have  ungratefully  used  against 
them.  You  choose  to  forget  that  in  every 
age  your  class  has  framed  just  the  sort  of 
formulas  for  reproof  and  exhortation  which 
best  accorded  with  the  interests  of  the  ruling 
class.  The  hollowness  of  your  present 
phrases  is  but  a  characteristic  of  all  the 
hortatory  phrases  of  your  class  since  first 
men  enslaved  their  brothers  and  called  upon 
priest  and  teacher  to  sanction  the  act. 

How  solicitous  you  are  regarding  the 
maintenance  of  initiative!  As  if  the  whole 
progress  of  civilization  had  not  been  at- 
tended by  a  setting  of  bounds  to  the  range 
of  men's  lower  initiatives  and  the  opening 
of  fields  for  initiative  on  higher  planes. 
And  as  if,  furthermore,  the  impulse  to  action 
could  never  be  anything  else  than  the  ex- 
pectation of  getting  something  from  your 
neighbor!  The  Levantine  pirate,  when 
piracy  was  abolished,  felt  just  the  sense 
of    outrage    from    the    restriction   of   his 

[123] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

freedom  of  action  that  the  factory  lord 
of  to-day  feels  over  a  restriction  in  the 
hours  of  child  workers.  Initiative  is  born 
with  man,  as  hunger  and  thirst  and  aspi- 
ration are  born  with  him.  The  closing 
of  the  opportunity  for  initiating  methods 
of  plundering  one  another  of  the  means  of 
life  will  but  set  free  the  incentives  of  men 
to  a  wider  range  of  nobler  initiatives. 
You  may  notice,  also,  when  you  take  time 
to  think  of  it,  that  throughout  this  period 
of  the  restraining  of  men's  initiatives  the 
sense  and  degree  of  men's  personal  respon- 
sibility has  steadily  increased. 

And,  then,  how  childish  is  your  stock 
phrase  regarding  goodness  and  legislation. 
You  seem  not  to  understand  how  far  from 
the  purposes  of  the  revolutionary  working 
class  is  "legislation,"  as  you  mean  it,  order- 
ing men  to  be  "good."  But  waiving  this, 
your  phrase  evades  the  truth  of  what  we 
know  and  you  know,  to  be  operative  even 
within  the  untoward  environment  of  a 
system  that  prompts  men  to  do  evil  for  gain. 
That  small  body  of  law  which  has  a  really 

[124] 


TO  THE  RETAINERS 

social  function — that  body  of  law  which 
sets  new  restraints  upon  the  brutal  and 
fratricidal  struggle  among  men — is  assuredly 
one  of  the  decisive  factors  in  moral  develop- 
ment. For  the  restraints  imposed  by  the 
law  in  one  age  become  a  basis  of  conscience 
in  the  next  age.  To  at  least  this  extent, 
if  to  no  further,  men  are  indubitably  "made 
good  by  legislation."  And  last,  you  would 
do  well,  for  at  least  two  reasons,  not  to  harp 
too  assiduously  on  that  other  and  twin 
phrase  regarding  legislation  and  riches. 
First,  because  it  is  not,  as  you  seem  to 
think,  an  argument  against  the  aims  of 
the  workers,  since  they  do  not  propose  to 
"make  men  rich  by  legislation";  and, 
second,  if  you  will  but  look  more  closely 
you  will  discover  on  every  hand  abundant 
proofs  that  under  the  present  order  thou- 
sands upon  thousands  of  men  are  con- 
stantly being  made  rich  by  legislative  pro- 
tection or  connivance,  and  that  among  the 
direct  beneficiaries  of  this  legislative  wealth- 
making  are  yourselves. 

And  now,  finally,  how  can  you  keep  your 

[125] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

way,  week  by  week,  mouthing  the  phrases 
inspired  in  you  by  your  masters,  and  forget- 
ful of  your  obligations  to  those  who  toil  ? 
Do  you  never  feel  a  consciousness  of  in- 
gratitude when  you  think  upon  those  by 
whose  patient  striving  you  are  fed?  Does 
an  inner  voice  never  speak  to  you  of  your 
subservience?  Do  you  never  start  and 
draw  back,  if  only  for  a  moment,  from  your 
forced  labor  of  mending  your  phrases, 
year  by  year,  to  make  them  accord  more 
nearly  with  the  newer  needs  of  your  masters  ? 
When,  twenty  years  ago,  you  preached 
unrestricted  competition  because  that  was 
the  thing  your  masters  demanded,  you  did 
not  divine  that  among  their  needs  to-day 
would  be  a  moral  and  economic  sanction 
for  the  limiting  of  competition,  as  in  trusts 
and  companies.  Did  you,  when  it  came 
to  making  the  shift,  make  it  freely  and 
gladly,  without  a  qualm,  or  did  you  palter 
and  hesitate,  as  one  who  would  avoid  an 
enforced  duty  ? 

And  do  you  never  grow  tired  with  it  all, 
and  look  upon  it  as  a  burden  from  which 

[126] 


TO  THE  RETAINERS 

you  would  be  free?  Is  it  an  always  pleas- 
ant lot  to  be  doing  only  that  which  your 
masters  desire  of  you?  Do  you  recall 
Rossetti's  "Jenny,"  and  the  question  he 
asks  of  her  and  answers  in  the  same  breath; 

"For  sometimes,  were  the  truth  confessed, 
You're  thankful  for  a  little  rest, — 
Glad  from  the  crush  to  rest  within 
From  the  heart-sickness  and  the  din, 

T*  T*  *l>  *P  T>  *fr  *T  *P 

From  shame  and  shame's  outbraving,  too, 
Is  rest  not  sometimes  sweet  to  you  ? " 

Do  you  not  sometimes  tire  of  it  all,  and 
look  out  wistfully  into  that  larger  com- 
munion of  life  where  service  is  not  a  mere- 
tricious and  degraded  pandering  to  the 
privilege  and  luxury  of  a  few,  but  a  render- 
ing of  good  to  the  human  race?  Do  you 
not  recognize  that  in  the  purposes  of  the 
master  class,  in  so  far  as  it  takes  any 
notice  of  you  at  all,  you  are  but  as  the 
pathetic  little  Jenny  in  the  hands  of  her 
master, 

"Who  having  used  you  at  [its]  will, 
Thrusts  you  aside,  as  when  I  dine, 
I  serve  the  dishes  and  the  wine  "  ? 
[127] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

Do  you  not  sometimes  wish  to  break 
clean  from  it  all,  and  to  merge  yourselves 
in  that  universal  movement  that  makes 
straight  for  the  goal  of  human  emancipa- 
tion? There  is  room  for  you  when  you 
shall  have  awakened  to  your  better  selves. 


[128] 


CHAPTER  IV 


TO   SOME   SOCIALISTS 


"Methinks  I  see  in  my  mind  a  noble  and  puissant  nation 
rousing  herself  like  a  strong  man  after  sleep,  and  shaking 
her  invincible  locks:  methinks  I  see  her  as  an  eagle 
mewing  her  mighty  youth,  and  kindling  her  undazzled 
eyes  at  the  full  mid-day  beam." — Milton:  Areopagitica. 

You  do  not  like  criticism,  you  hard-and- 
fast  Socialists  of  a  certain  sort.  That  is, 
criticism  directed  against  yourselves.  You 
are  somewhat  overfond  of  criticism  directed 
against  others,  and  in  this  you  indulge 
yourselves  freely.  Indeed,  so  much  is  there 
of  sweeping  and  indiscriminate  denuncia- 
tion in  common  Socialist  print  and  speech 
that  one  might  very  well  be  led  to  define 
Socialism  as  a  "criticism  of  life."  But 
of  self-criticism  you  are  not  fond;  while 
of  other  persons'  criticism  you  are  generally 
resentful.  Some  forms  of  it  you  tolerate: 
One  individual  censures  another,  and  one 

9  [129] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

group  or  faction  exchanges  with  another 
the  liveliest  animadversions  upon  its  con- 
duct or  tactics.  These  interchanges  of 
amenities  you  take  as  a  matter  of  course. 
But  the  movement  as  a  whole,  with  its  ulti- 
mate aim,  with  its  theories  and  assumptions, 
often  with  even  its  personal  composition 
and  its  purely  incidental  and  temporary 
features,  you  are  prone  to  regard  as  sacred, 
and  therefore  beyond  criticism.  A  Chris- 
tian devotee  or  a  Mohammedan  zeaiot 
could  hardly  be  more  unquestioning  in 
his  faith;  and  neither  of  these  could  more 
passionately  resent  the  calling  in  question 
of  the  things  of  his  belief. 

You  speak  of  yourselves,  with  pride  and 
assurance,  as  "scientific"  Socialists.  But 
is  the  spirit  of  rapt  faith,  of  intolerance  of 
disbelief  and  of  resentment  over  criticism 
quite  in  accord  with  the  scientific  temper? 
Is  not  the  scientific  spirit  more  in  accord 
with  the  eternal  questioning  of  truth;  the 
constant  turning  back  upon  conclusions 
already  formed  for  new  tests  of  their  validity ; 
the  hospitable  welcoming  of  criticism  from 

[130] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

all  quarters;  the  swallowing  up  of  regret 
at  the  destruction  of  cherished  beliefs  in 
the  joy  of  new  discoveries?  No  doubt 
faith  and  strong  partisanship  may  accom- 
pany the  inquiring  mind.  So  thorough  a 
scientist  as  Huxley  could  be  an  ardent 
advocate  and  propagandist  of  a  cause.  But 
such  ardency  is  a  reasoned  ardency — a 
fervency  of  conviction  based  upon  an  un- 
biased questioning  of  realities;  and  when 
the  realities  show  an  altered  meaning, 
faith  changes  with  them  and  attaches  itself  to 
the  new  meanings.  This  is  not  your  kind  of 
faith.  Yours  is  rather  that  theological  cast, 
which  having  been  dispossessed  of  its  super- 
natural deities  and  dogmas,  sets  up  material- 
istic ones  in  their  stead.  It  is  a  faith  which 
has  its  holy  words  and  its  fetishes  and  its 
taboos.  It  is  a  faith  which  fixes  itself  upon 
set  terms,  upon  iron-bound  phrases,  from 
which  it  refuses  to  be  dislodged,  and  the 
questioning  of  which  it  regards  as  a  sort 
of  sinning  against  the  light. 

Now  astronomers  and  chemists  and  math- 
ematicians are  formed  of  the  same  poor 

[131] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

clay  as  ourselves;  and  yet  they  analyze 
and  compare,  they  disagree  and  criticise, 
they  overturn  and  destroy  the  achievements 
of  one  another  in  their  eternal  questioning 
of  truth.  But  they  seek  and  strive  in  com- 
parative tranquillity  of  spirit.  No  astron- 
omer quarrels  with  another  for  developing 
some  new  detail  in  spectrum  analysis;  no 
mathematician  assails  the  orthodoxy  of 
another  for  working  out  a  hitherto  baffling 
problem;  and  no  chemist  feels  the  truth 
blasphemed  at  the  discovery  by  another 
of  a  new  element.  Each  of  these  achieve- 
ments may  have  overturned  or  made  un- 
stable some  generalization  previously  ac- 
cepted as  law;  and  yet  each  achievement 
is  hailed  as  a  contribution  to  the  world's 
knowledge,  and  resentment  against  the 
investigator  would  be  regarded  as  madness. 
These  workers  follow  the  scientific  method. 
You  do  not.  In  your  partisan  fervor, 
though  taking  the  scientific  name,  you 
forget  its  meaning  and  its  obligations. 
No  doubt  the  tendency  of  a  propagandist 
movement   must   ever  be  to   hold   fast   to 

[132] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

certain  dogmas,  as  well  as  to  traditional 
forms  and  practices.  The  converts  are 
won  by  telling  them  that  such  and  such 
things  are  eternally  and  unalterably  true, 
and  it  is  an  embarrassing  duty  in  after 
times  to  have  to  tell  them  that  such  things 
have  been  found  to  be  not  true,  and  that 
other  things  in  their  stead  are  true.  There 
is  an  instinctive  fear  that  the  recasting  of 
particular  beliefs  in  the  minds  of  the  con- 
verts may  undermine  faith  in  the  creed  as 
a  whole.  Also,  there  are  tired  and  limited 
brains  to  consider,  which  having  laboriously 
learned  one  thing  by  rote,  cannot  well 
learn  another.  For  the  sake  of  the  numer- 
ical integrity  of  the  movement  it  is  best 
to  leave  them  with  what  they  have  rather 
than  to  risk  a  change.  A  hardening  process 
sets  in,  and  a  supreme  value  attaches  to 
orthodoxy  and  constancy  of  belief  as  the 
basis  of  the  movement.  The  distrust  of 
criticism  is  thus  natural;  the  turmoil  in 
the  ranks  of  the  German  Social  Democracy 
which  followed  the  appearance  of  Eduard 
Bernstein's  little  book  is  a  classic  instance 

[133] 


SOCIALISM   AND   SUCCESS 

of  its  manifestation.  But  though  an  ad- 
herence to  dogma  and  a  distrust  of  criticism 
are  to  some  extent  inevitable,  they  will, 
unless  recognized  and  guarded  against  to 
the  full,  invariably  result  in  retrogression. 
There  must  be  free  thought  and  free  expres- 
sion, else  the  movement  declines.  And  as 
for  you,  you  must  follow  the  scientific 
method,  or  renounce  the  scientific  name. 

You  forget  that  method,  and  you  involve 
yourselves  in  many  contradictions  and 
absurdities  of  speech  and  action.  You  re- 
vive old  fallacies  and  old  shibboleths,  and 
transforming  them  to  your  needs,  make 
them  an  integral  part  of  your  creed.  You 
denounce  the  jingoism  of  a  nation,  but  you 
exalt  the  jingoism  of  a  party  and  a  class. 
The  sentiment  of  fanatical  patriotism,  "My 
country,  right  if  possible,  but  anyhow  my 
country,"  you  reject  with  scorn;  but  you 
substitute  for  "my  country"  the  terms 
"my  party"  or  "my  class,"  and  the  jingo 
phrase  becomes  your  slogan.  You  ridicule 
the  sentiment  of  party  "regularity"  when 
it  is  held  by  Republicans  and  Democrats 

[134] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

and  Prohibitionists,  but  you  make  it  an 
ethical  standard  for  Socialists.  You  recog- 
nize that  when  it  is  held  by  others  it  is  a 
sentiment  fraught  with  the  grossest  evil — 
that  it  means  in  effect  the  condoning  and 
sanctioning,  "for  the  good  of  the  cause," 
of  every  vicious  act  that  a  group  of  design- 
ing men  may  commit.  But  for  yourselves 
you  transform  it  and  make  it  a  sacred  prin- 
ciple. 

You  ridicule  the  rapt  devotion  of  Mor- 
mons and  Mohammedans  and  Christians 
to  the  literal  reading  of  their  holy  books, 
written  many  years  ago ;  and  you  give  your- 
selves with  a  greater  devotion  to  a  belief 
in  the  inerrancy  of  the  words  of  a  German 
prophet  whom  you  sparely,  if  ever,  read. 
You  have  learned  to  deride  as  " Utopian" 
certain  views  of  the  early  Socialists  as  to 
the  character  and  the  methods  of  attaining 
the  ideal  state;  and  yet  the  Socialist  state 
of  your  imagination  you  are  prone  to  endow 
with  utterly  Utopian  and  preposterous  fea- 
tures. 

Against  all  the  teachings  of  experience 

[185] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

you  not  infrequently  exalt  fanaticism — so 
only  that  it  is  your  kind  of  fanaticism — 
as  a  means  of  advancing  your  cause  and 
therefore  a  moral  good.  Though  you  set 
great  store  by  rigid  and  uncompromising 
tactics  in  your  strife  with  the  non-Socialist 
world,  you  are  too  prone  to  indulge  in 
compromising  tricks  and  devices  in  your 
factional  strife  within  the  movement. 
Though  in  your  public  appeals  you  some- 
times extol  education,  too  often  you  mean 
by  the  word  no  more  than  conversion  to 
party  Socialism.  More  often  you  belittle 
real  education  as  useless  or  even  harmful; 
when  it  suits  your  purposes  you  incite 
proletarian  against  "intellectual";  you  ap- 
peal to  the  lowest  stratum  of  ignorance, 
and  you  insinuate  and  encourage  a  sus- 
picion of  education  and  of  educated  men. 

You  extol  free  thought  and  free  speech, 
but  often  you  deny  that  freedom  in  your 
own  ranks.  You  have  scornful  and  derisive 
words  for  what  you  call  "capitalist  moral- 
ity," forgetful  that  though  each  economic 
system    develops    its    superficial    code,    the 

[136] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

fundamental  ethical  standards  are  an  evo- 
lution through  all  time,  and  are  no  more 
the  product  of  capitalism  than  they  are  of 
tribal  communism  or  of  feudalism,  or  of 
those  intermediate  systems  known  as  house- 
hold economy  and  town  economy.  In 
your  wholesale  denunciation  of  capitalism 
you  forget  the  lessons  of  history,  and  you 
ascribe  to  a  passing  economic  system  the 
prevalence  of  defects  and  evils  in  human 
nature  which  have  persisted  throughout  the 
life  of  the  race.  You  denounce  the  capital- 
ist class  for  its  ruthless  exercise  of  might, 
and  yet  in  your  message  to  the  working 
class  you  often  appeal,  not  to  its  sense  of 
social  justice,  but  merely  to  its  consciousness 
of  numbers  and  power.  Not  seldom  you 
forget  that  Socialism  is  not  merely  for  the 
Socialists,  but  for  all  men;  and  you  distort 
the  meaning  of  the  class  struggle  into  that 
of  a  medieval  peasants'  war — a  revolt  of 
one  class  to  despoil  and  dominate  another. 

You  cannot  achieve  a  millennial  revolution 
by  holding  such  concepts  and  employing 
such  means.     You  are  as  one  on  a  wrong 

[137] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

road,  on  a  dark  night,  miles  and  miles  from 
home,  and  headed  the  wrong  way.  You 
will  need  to  dismiss  your  many  fallacies,  to 
harmonize  your  many  contradictions  be- 
tween precept  and  practice,  you  will  need  to 
orient  yourselves  and  to  retrace  your  steps 
before  you  can  make  headway  toward  your 
goal. 

Fortunately,  in  no  place  in  the  American 
movement  are  you  often  in  the  majority. 
More  often,  in  most  places,  you  are  an 
inconsiderable  minority.  One  who  has 
been  for  more  than  twenty  years  in  or  about 
the  movement  cannot  fail  to  bear  testimony 
to  the  intelligent  devotion,  the  disillusioned 
zeal  and  the  reasonableness  of  attitude  and 
conduct  to  be  found  within  the  ranks.  But 
some  of  you  are  always  present  everywhere. 
You  have  always  been  present.  The  his- 
tory of  the  movement  in  America,  with 
its  frequent  shifts  and  turnings,  its  factions, 
its  warring  at  cross  purposes,  its  heresy 
trials,  its  breakdowns  and  reorganizations, 
sometimes  its  bombastic  declarations,  its 
visionary  efforts  and  its  illusory  aims,  only 

[138] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

too  truly  pictures  your  presence  at  all  times. 
It  was  evidently  the  belief  of  Horace  Greeley, 
whose  years  of  experience  in  the  cause  in 
its  earlier  days  entitle  his  judgment  to 
respect,  that  you  would  always  be  present 
in  the  future.  Summing  up  the  failure  of 
the  Fourierite  communities,  this  is  what 
he  said: 

"A  serious  obstacle  to  the  success  of  any 
Socialistic  experiment  must  always  be  con- 
fronted. I  allude  to  the  kind  of  persons 
who  are  naturally  attracted  to  it.  Along 
with  many  noble  and  lofty  souls,  whose 
impulses  are  purely  philanthropic,  and  who 
are  willing  to  labor  and  suffer  reproach  for 
any  cause  that  promises  to  benefit  mankind, 
there  throng  scores  of  whom  the  world  is 
quite  worthy — the  conceited,  the  crotchety, 
the  selfish,  the  headstrong,  the  pugnacious, 
the  unappreciated,  the  played-out,  the  idle, 
and  the  good-for-nothing  generally;  who, 
finding  themselves  utterly  out  of  place  and 
at  a  discount  in  the  world  as  it  is,  rashly  con- 
clude that  they  are  exactly  fitted  for  the  world 
as  it  ought  to  be*  These  may  have  failed 
again   and   again,    and   been   protested   at 

*  Italics  mine. — W.  J.  G. 
[139] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

every  bank  to  which  they  have  been  pre- 
sented; yet  they  are  sure  to  jump  into  any 
new  movement  as  if  they  had  been  born  ex- 
pressly to  superintend  and  direct  it,  though 
they  are  morally  certain  to  ruin  whatever 
they  lay  their  hands  on.  Destitute  of  means, 
of  practical  ability,  of  prudence,  tact  and 
common  sense,  they  have  such  a  wealth  of 
assurance  and  self-confidence  that  they 
clutch  the  responsible  positions  which  the 
capable  and  worthy  modestly  shrink  from; 
so  responsibilities  that  would  tax  the  ablest 
are  mistakenly  devolved  on  the  blindest 
and  least  fit.  Many  an  experiment  is  thus 
wrecked,  when,  engineered  by  its  best  mem- 
bers, it  might  have  succeeded." 

It  is  not  necessary  to  accept  Greeley's 
sweeping  judgment  in  all  its  implications. 
The  Socialist  movement  is  a  movement  of 
the  oppressed.  It  welcomes  as  no  other 
organization,  spiritual  or  secular,  welcomes, 
all  those  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden  and 
weary  of  heart — all  those  who  have  felt 
most  keenly  the  brutalizing  effects  of  the 
present  system  and  who  yet  retain  a  spirit 
of  resistance.  It  would  welcome  as  well 
the  proletariat  of  the  slums,  but  in  them — 

[140] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

the  most  brutalized  victims — the  spirit  is 
extinguished,  and  no  appeal  reaches  them. 
Though,  however,  the  Socialist  movement 
seeks  out  and  welcomes  the  disinherited 
and  the  dispossessed  and  the  wrecks  and 
cripples  of  this  ghastly  fratricidal  war — 
the  beings  who  might  have  been  whole  and 
sound  under  a  better  system — it  ought  to 
have  no  welcome  for  the  unsocial — for  the 
factious,  the  fanatical,  the  jealous,  the 
selfish  and  the  treacherous.  Perhaps  every 
movement  has  had  its  self-seekers,  its  dis- 
turbers, its  fanatics  and  its  demagogues. 
But  it  is  the  business  of  this  most  modern 
movement,  this  "heir  of  all  the  ages"  in 
enlightenment,  not  to  have  them.  This 
movement  is  not  one  for  fostering  individual 
self-interest,  and  it  therefore  has  no  place 
for  self-seekers.  It  is  a  movement  for  peace 
and  order  and  system  and  mutual  restraint, 
and  it  therefore  has  no  place  for  faction- 
breeders  and  disturbers.  It  is  not  a  move- 
ment headed  by  some  divinely  inspired 
Mahdi  with  a  supernatural  message,  and 
it  therefore  has  no  place  for  fanatics.   It 

[141] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

is  a  movement  not  for  flattering  the  pro- 
letariat, but  for  disciplining  and  educating 
the  proletariat — for  fitting  it  for  power,  in 
Marx's  phrase — and  it  therefore  has  no 
place  for  demagogues.  Yet  in  spite  of  its 
character  and  its  mission,  some  of  these 
men  drift  to  it;  and  a  good  part  of  the  time 
they  exert  an  appreciable  influence. 

You  know  all  this,  though  you  do  not 
want  the  fact  spoken  abroad — though  you 
want  it  only  whispered  among  ourselves, 
or  at  most  published  only  in  our  own  period- 
icals, where,  ridiculously  enough,  every 
interested  person  can  read  it  just  as  well 
as  if  it  had  appeared  in  some  capitalist 
periodical.  But  you  forget  that  our  move- 
ment, though  in  its  narrower  sense  a  class 
movement,  is  an  appeal  to  man's  sense  of 
social  justice.  It  is  an  appeal  to  all  men — 
to  the  capitalist  as  well  as  to  the  workman; 
and  though  we  do  our  main  work  among 
the  working  class,  it  is  not  because  we  are 
unwilling  that  the  capitalist  who  accepts 
our  principles  should  come  to  us,  but 
because  we  believe  that  in  most  cases  the 

[142] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

rich  man's  material  interest  blinds  him  to 
a  sense  of  social  justice.  Our  appeal  is 
to  all  men,  and  our  contest  is  carried  on 
"in  the  open."  We  have  no  secrets,  and 
we  ought  to  have  none,  for  we  are  best 
protected  by  having  none.  In  proportion 
as  our  movement  is  open  to  the  world  the 
power  of  a  capitalist  organization  to  cripple 
it  through  spies  and  informers  is  lessened. 
It  is  possible  that  there  are  men  in  this 
movement  who  are  put  there  and  paid  for 
being  there  by  a  capitalist  organization. 
If  so,  however,  they  are  not  there  because 
of  secret  information  to  be  got,  but  because 
of  their  power  to  foment  discord;  and  half 
the  times  you  permit  yourselves  to  become 
wildly  excited  over  some  fraudulent  issue 
or  some  silly  charge,  it  may  be  that  you  are 
playing  the  part  of  dupe  to  a  capitalist 
agent.  To  repeat,  we  have  no  secrets. 
We  cannot  hurt  our  movement  by  describing 
it  in  plain  terms  to  all  men;  we  can  hurt 
it  most  by  ignoring  its  defects  or  by  turning 
with  blind  and  savage  resentment  against 
those  that  tell  us  the  truth  about  ourselves. 

[143] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

There  is  that  "demagogy  of  ignorance" 
upon  which  from  time  to  time  you  play, 
or  with  which  you  are  played  upon — that  in- 
citement of  proletarian  against  "intellect- 
ual," that  scarcely  disguised  praise  of 
fanatical  ignorance.  It  will  have  to  be 
extirpated,  root  and  branch,  and  burned 
with  fire,  that  its  poisonous  growth  may 
no  more  be  possible.  How  widespread  is 
this  demagogy,  how  harmful  it  is  to  the 
movement,  may  be  indicated  by  quotations 
from  two  men  who  know  the  situation.  The 
first  is  from  the  honored  and  beloved  stand- 
ard-bearer of  the  Socialist  party  in  America 
— Mr.  Debs.  It  is  taken  from  an  article 
by  him  on  the  death  of  Thomas  McGrady, 
published  in  the  Appeal  to  Reason,  Dec. 
14,  1907,  and  afterward  reproduced  in 
Mr.  Debs'  book.  McGrady  was  a  man 
who  gave  up  the  church  for  Socialism,  and 
was  afterward  virtually  hounded  to  his 
death — by  men  calling  themselves  Socialists. 
He  had  intellect,  he  had  sympathy  for  the 
poor,  he  had  enthusiasm  for  the  cause. 
All  that  he  had  he  gave.     It  was  not  enough. 

[144] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

"Certain  'leaders,'"  writes  Mr.  Debs, 
"whose  narrow  prejudices  were  inflamed 
by  the  new  agitator's  success  and  increasing 
popularity  in  the  movement,  began  to  turn 
upon  him  and  sting  him  with  venomous 
innuendo  or  attack  him  openly  through 
the  Socialist  press.  .  .  .  The  cry  was  raised, 
'the  grafter  must  go!'  It  was  this  that 
shocked  his  tender  sensibilities,  silenced  his 
eloquent  tongue  and  broke  his  noble  and 
generous  heart." 

Continuing,  Mr.  Debs  writes: 

"  There  is  a  deep  lesson  in  the  melancholy 
and  untimely  death  of  Comrade  Thomas 
McGrady.  Let  us  hope  that  so  much  good 
may  result  from  it  that  the  cruel  sacrifice 
may  be  softened  by  the  atonement  and 
serve  the  future  as  a  noble  and  inspiring 
example. 

"  While  it  is  the  duty  of  every  member  to 
guard  the  movement  against  the  impostor, 
the  chronic  suspicion  that  a  man  who  has 
risen  above  the  mental  plane  of  a  scavenger 
is  a  'grafter'  is  a  besetting  sin,  and  has  done 
incalculable  harm  to  the  movement.  The 
increasing  cry  from  the  same  source  that 

10  [  145  ] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

only  the  proletariat  is  revolutionary  and 
that  '  intellectuals '  are  middle-class  reaction- 
aries is  an  insult  to  the  movement,  many 
of  whose  stanchest  supporters  are  of  the 
latter  type.  Moreover,  it  would  imply  by 
its  sneering  allusion  to  the  'intellectuals' 
that  the  proletariat  are  a  brainless  rabble, 
reveling  in  their  base  degeneracy  and  scorn- 
ing intellectual  enlightenment. 

"Many  a  fine  spirit  who  would  have 
served  the  movement  as  an  effective  agitator 
and  powerful  advocate,  stung  to  the  quick 
by  the  keen  lash  in  the  hand  of  a  *  comrade,' 
has  dropped  into  silence  and  faded  into 
obscurity. 

"Fortunately  the  influence  of  these  self- 
appointed  censors  is  waning.  The  move- 
ment is  no  longer  a  mere  fanatical  sect."  It 
has  outgrown  that  period  in  spite  of  its 
sentinels  and  doorkeepers. 

"Between  watchful  devotion,  which 
guards  against  impostors  and  chronic  heresy- 
hunting,  which  places  a  premium  upon  dirt 
and  stupidity  and  imposes  a  penalty  upon 
brains  and  self-respect,  there  is  a  difference 
wide  as  the  sea.  The  former  is  a  virtue 
which  cannot  be  too  highly  commended, 
the  latter  a  vice  which  cannot  be  too 
severely  condemned." 

[146] 


TO  SOME   SOCIALISTS 

The  other  quotation  is  from  Mr.  John 
Spargo,  a  Socialist  who,  in  the  service  of 
the  party,  has  traveled  over  the  greater 
part  of  the  United  States,  and  whose 
writings  are  more  widely  read  than  those 
of  any  other  American  Socialist.  It  ap- 
peared in  the  New  York  Daily  Call,  Nov. 
14,  1909: 

"  One  of  the  most  pernicious  and  deplor- 
able things  in  connection  with  the  present 
situation  in  the  party  is  the  fact  that  self- 
seeking  demagogues,  with  more  or  less  suc- 
cess, make.it  their  business  to  create  artificial 
divisions  in  our  ranks,  and  to  foster  hatred 
and  suspicion  where  comradeship  and  trust 
are  so  necessary.  Take,  for  example,  the 
attempt  to  range  the  proletariat  against  the 
so-called  'intellectuals'  in  the  party:  Not- 
withstanding the  fact  that  our  capitalist 
enemies  enlist  all  the  best  trained  intellects 
procurable  to  serve  their  interests,  especially 
by  poisoning  the  fountains  of  knowledge 
and  confusing  the  minds  of  the  wage- 
workers,  and  the  fact  that  their  activity  can 
only  be  met  by  equally  well  trained  intel- 
lects devoted  to  the  Socialist  cause,  there  are 
many  in  our  ranks  who  would  deprive  the 

[147] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

Socialist  cause  of  this  service.  They  would 
keep  out  every  man  or  woman  who  ventures 
to  place  superior  education  and  mental  train- 
ing at  the  disposal  of  the  party.  Has  a 
comrade  written  a  book  which  has  pene- 
trated beyond  the  circumference  of  the 
Socialist  circle,  or  does  he  or  she  occupy  a 
position  in  professional  life  which  compels 
attention  from  the  press  and  the  public, 
and  makes  it  impossible  for  these  to  remain 
indifferent,  then,  instead  of  rejoicing  at  the 
fact,  these  narrow  schismatics  and  sec- 
taries cry  out  in  protest.  Fearful  lest  they 
be  overshadowed  and  no  longer  acknowl- 
edged as  leaders,  they  resort  to  all  the  arts 
of  knavery  and  demagoguery  to  destroy 
those  whom  they  regard  as  rivals.  That 
they  rob  the  movement  of  great  and  vitally 
necessary  services  is  to  them  nothing — they 
place  their  petty  ambitions  above  the  interests 
of  the  cause" * 

You  cannot  deny  that  the  blessedness 
of  ignorance,  the  contempt  of  knowledge, 
has  been  elevated  into  a  doctrine  in  the 
Socialist  movement  in  America.  It  is  not 
always  ingenuously  put  forth.     Most  often 

*  Italics  mine. — W.  J.  G. 
[148] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

it  is  ingeniously  disguised.  But  it  is  held, 
and  somewhat  widely  held,  and  its  manifes- 
tations are  frequent.  It  is  a  doctrine  which 
at  the  present  time  probably  does  more  harm 
to  the  Socialist  movement  than  any  other 
factor.  It  keeps  from  the  ranks  thousands 
of  able  men  who  might  be  of  inestimable 
help.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  accept- 
able to  the  real  proletariat,  and  it  keeps  them 
also  from  the  ranks.  To  them  it  is  a  fan- 
tastic aberration.  Furthermore,  it  tends  to 
give  common-sense  men  of  whatever  class 
who  might  be  sympathetic  toward  the 
cause  a  totally  false  impression  of  the 
Socialist  state  and  of  Socialist  civilization. 
Then,  too,  it  cripples  the  movement  in  its 
primary  work  of  educating  the  masses  in 
social  science;  it  defeats  the  purposes  of 
the  schools  and  study  classes,  and  it  limits 
the  circulation  of  the  press.  While  it  does 
not  altogether  prevent  the  election  of  able 
men  to  the  highest  places  in  the  gift  of  the 
party,  it  does  unquestionably  operate,  in 
all  the  larger  cities  of  the  nation,  to  throw 
the  local  party  machinery  into  the  hands 

[149] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

of  crafty  men   and  to   modify  the  tactics 
and  spirit  of  the  movement. 

The  doctrine  is  not  a  doctrine  of  scientific 
Socialism.  It  is  an  old  doctrine  of  the 
church,  but  it  has  been  largely  superseded 
even  in  the  church.  It  is  a  curious  anomaly 
to  find  it  coming  forth  in  the  utterances  of 
men  who  belong  to  the  most  advanced 
movement  of  the  time — the  movement  of 
which  Lassalle  exultantly  boasted  that  it 
was  "armed  with  the  complete  culture 
of  the  century."  Yet  it  is  not  a  novel 
manifestation.  It  has  appeared  from  time 
to  time  throughout  the  history  of  modern 
Socialism.  Marx  realized  its  danger  sixty 
years  ago.  He  had  met  with  the  same 
attitude,  and  he  rebuked  it  in  strong  lan- 
guage. What  the  proletariat  needed,  he 
said,  was  to  change  themselves  and  make 
themselves  worthy  of  power.  Resigning 
from  the  Central  Committee  of  the  Com- 
munist Society  in  September,  1850,  he  wrote: 

"While  we  say  to  the  working  people: 
'  You  will  have  to  go  through  fifteen,  twenty, 
fifty  years  of  civil  wars  and  wars  between 

[150] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

nations  not  only  to  change  existing  condi- 
tions but  to  change  yourselves  and  make 
yourselves  worthy  of  political  power,'  you, 
on  the  contrary,  say,  *  We  ought  to  get  power 
at  once,  or  else  give  up  the  fight.'  .  .  .  Just 
as  the  democrats  made  a  sort  of  fetish  of  the 
words  'the  people,'  so  you  make  one  of  the 
word  'proletariat.'  Like  them  you  sub- 
stitute revolutionary  phrases  for  revolu- 
tionary evolution." 

The  Communists  and  Socialists  of  Europe 
learned  better  in  time.  There,  in  the  hard 
battles  of  the  last  sixty  years  with  the  owning 
class,  it  was  found  that  every  mental  gift 
and  faculty  that  could  possibly  be  drawn 
into  the  service  of  the  workers  was  needed. 
And  the  result  is  that  to-day  in  Europe 
intelligent  and  able  men  are  at  the  head 
of  the  Socialist  movement. 

It  is  not  a  proletarian  doctrine.  That 
is,  it  is  not  a  doctrine  commonly  held  by 
the  working  class  of  the  world.  Democracy 
increasingly  makes  provision  for  education; 
it  increasingly  gives  leadership  to  men  of 
education  and  ability.  It  could  not  do 
these  things  if  hostility  to  education  were 

[151] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

common  among  the  proletariat.  Only  in 
the  Socialist  party,  and  then,  for  the  most 
part,  only  here  in  America,  where  the  move- 
ment is  new  and  crude,  does  this  doctrine 
develop.  In  its  latent  form,  it  comes  largely 
as  a  consequence  of  the  cult  of  ultra-pro- 
letarianism.  The  notion  that  the  manual 
working  class  solely  by  itself,  is,  by  some 
hocus-pocus  method,  to  overthrow  and  dis- 
possess the  capitalist  class,  leads  easily, 
in  untrained  minds,  to  the  notion  that 
education  is  of  little  value.  The  doctrine 
is  further  fostered  by  that  unfortunate 
dualistic  use  of  the  term  "working  class" 
which  nine  out  of  ten  Socialists  habitually, 
and  for  the  most  part  innocently,  employ. 
When  they  speak  of  production  and  ex- 
change-value and  ethical  recompense,  they 
include  in  the  term  "working  class"  every 
one  who  renders  useful  service  to  society, 
or  at  least  every  one  who  in  any  way  assists 
in  the  production  and  distribution  of  com- 
modities; but  when  they  talk  of  organiza- 
tion and  education  and  discipline  and  revo- 
lution, they  mean  by  the  term  only  the  class 

[152] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

of  manual  workers  employed  at  wages.  It 
is  the  emphasis  put  upon  this  latter  meaning 
that  causes  so  much  of  the  difficulty. 

This  latent  hostility  to  education  may  be 
sub-conscious  or  half -conscious;  but  it  is 
real  and  abiding  for  all  that.  It  may  lie 
dormant  for  a  long  time.  But  it  is  a  feeling 
easily  roused  into  consciousness  by  dema- 
gogues, and  demagogues  are  ever  ready 
for  their  own  purposes  to  incite  the  proleta- 
riat. The  demagogues  are  themselves  usu- 
ally professional  men — men  of  more  or  less 
education.  Sometimes  they  are  men  who 
feel  that  they  have  not  been  honored  as 
their  transcendent  merits  deserve.  Inev- 
itably such  men  fall  back  upon  the  pro- 
letariat for  support.  Their  demagogy  is 
deliberate.  They  seek  to  prove  that  they 
are  more  proletarian  than  the  working 
class  itself.  To  the  unthinking  there  is 
something  attractive  in  the  false  humility  of 
the  educated  or  partly  educated  person 
who  minimizes  education.  To  discredit 
one's  own  possessions  tends  to  put  one  on 
a  level  with  the  non-possessing;  and  the 

[153] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

pride  that  apes  humility  wins  an  easy 
victory.  In  other  cases,  the  demagogy  is 
less  conscious.  An  educated  man  coming 
into  a  movement  so  avowedly  proletarian 
inevitably  feels  himself  on  the  defensive; 
he  feels  himself  in  the  presence  of  a  per- 
petual challenge.  Almost  insensibly  he  is 
led  to  take  what  he  innocently  imagines 
to  be  the  proletarian  attitude.  Usually  he 
knows  nothing  about  the  working  class; 
he  is  conscious  of  a  sense  of  detachment 
from  his  new  allies;  and  like  an  alien  guest 
he  must  flatter  his  host.  He  comes,  in 
time,  to  speak  the  same  language  as  does 
the  disgruntled  seeker  of  honors  and  power. 
Wherever  one  traces  this  ultra-proletarian 
view,  with  its  sneer  at  education  and  at 
educated  men,  he  finds  its  development 
not  among  the  real  proletarians,  but  among 
this  group  of  "professional  proletarians" 
— of  men  who  profess  to  be  something  other 
than  what  they  are. 

It  takes  strange  forms  at  times,  and  utters 
itself  in  rich  absurdities.  In  its  blind  obliv- 
iousness to  the  facts  of  life  it  taboos  the 

[154] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

words  "leader"  and  "leadership"  in  the 
Socialist  movement  and  assumes  the  equal 
intellectual  and  moral  influence  of  the  most 
unlettered  man  with  the  most  gifted.  "  We 
are  not  followers;  we  need  no  leaders,"  is 
the  slogan  one  sometimes  hears  from  men 
who  never  move  but  when  led.  A  phrase 
binds  them,  and  a  demagogue  leads  them. 
Men  who  look  life  in  the  face  are  not  afraid 
of  the  word  "leader."  All  men  who  honor 
intelligence  and  probity  are  proud  to  call 
themselves  the  followers  of  men  wiser  and 
better  than  themselves.  Look  back  a  third 
of  a  century,  when  the  scientific  movement 
was  a  propaganda  movement  as  the  Socialist 
movement  now  is,  and  recall  the  illustrious 
men  who  were  proud  to  call  themselves  the 
followers  of  Darwin.  Think  of  Huxley  and 
Tyndall  and  Frankland  and  Grant  Allen 
and  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  men  of  the  first 
grade  of  intelligence,  honor  and  manliness, 
and  note  with  what  pride  they  accepted  the 
word  "follower."  Are  you  better  or  wiser 
than  they  ?  And  how  do  you  accommodate 
your  disavowal  of  leaders  and  your  denial 

[155] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

of  leadership  with  your  professed  rigid 
allegiance  to  Karl  Marx  ? 

Then,  too,  at  times,  it  utters  itself  in  con- 
fident predictions  regarding  the  place  of 
"intellectuals"  in  the  Socialist  republic. 
"Under  Socialism,"  says  one  very  certain 
prophet  of  a  semi-official  sort,  "there  will 
be  no  '  intellectuals '  and  no  manual  laborers. 
You  [addressing  an  inquirer]  seem  to  have 
forgotten  the  fundamental  aim  of  Socialism, 
the  abolition  of  classes.  In  a  society  in 
which  everybody  works  and  no  one  appro- 
priates the  fruit  of  other  people's  labor, 
everybody  is  free  to  develop  his  intellectual 
powers." 

In  other  words,  a  reversion  to  barbarism. 
And  this  is  a  picture  of  the  ideal  Socialist 
state,  "armed  with  the  complete  culture 
of  the  century"!  The  tragedy  of  the  matter 
is,  not  that  an  occasional  writer  will  make 
such  a  demagogic  utterance,  but  that  to 
numbers  of  men  it  appeals  as  a  satisfactory 
picture  of  an  ideal  state.  Socialism,  it 
ought  not  to  be  forgotten,  is  social  evolution; 
it  is  not  a  free-hand  drawing  made  by  an 

[156] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

obliging  prophet  for  the  benefit  of  men  an- 
gry, like  Shakespeare's  Jack  Cade,  thai  other 
men  should  be  more  learned  than  them- 
selves. As  it  climbs  to  far  heights  and 
attains  its  dominance,  it  discards  what 
is  outgrown  and  unfit,  but  it  retains  what 
is  best — what  men  have  sacrificed  for  and 
striven  for  through  all  ages.  At  all  costs 
it  will  retain  learning.  Those  students  of 
Socialism  who  sincerely  fear  that  the  victory 
of  the  proletariat  will  mean  a  return  of 
the  dark  ages,  may  find  some  confirmation  of 
their  fears  in  such  utterances.  But  they  can 
find  none  in  the  actual  tendencies  of  things 
— in  those  living  tides  and  currents  by  which 
intelligent  Socialists  test  their  estimates  of  a 
future  state. 

The  statement  that  Socialism  involves 
the  abolition  of  classes  means  no  more 
than  that  Socialism  involves  the  abolition 
of  economic  classes — of  divisions  of  men 
whose  material  interests  are  so  conflicting 
that  necessarily  they  must  fight  for  material 
advantage.  It  does  not  mean  that  Social- 
ism  involves   the   abolition   of   specialized 

[157] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

kinds  of  occupation,  intellectual  and  manual. 
No  one  who  bases  his  picture  of  Socialism 
on  observed  facts  and  tendencies,  rather 
than  on  Utopian  dreams,  can  doubt  that 
Socialism  will  bring  about  a  greater  and 
more  widely  prevalent  specialization  of 
function  than  we  know  to-day.  Socialism 
means  efficiency  and  progress — intellectual 
and  moral  progress  as  well  as  progress  in 
the  methods  of  producing  commodities. 
No  doubt  it  involves  a  greater  mobility 
of  labor — a  greater  and  more  varied  effi- 
ciency of  manual  and  even  directive  labor, 
so  as  to  provide  for  readier  transition  from 
one  occupation  to  another.  But  there  are 
thousands  of  occupations  useful  to  social 
life  for  efficiency  in  which  even  a  lifetime 
of  training  is  hardly  sufficient;  there  are 
occupations  the  practice  of  which  requires 
the  uninterrupted  time  of  individuals,  and 
there  are  innate  differences  in  men  which 
fit  some  for  one  occupation  and  some  for 
another. 

The  naTve  notion   of  a  society  in  which 
a  Darwin  would  be  compelled  to  manipulate 

[158] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

a  linotype  machine  for  five  hours  a  day; 
or  a  Marx  to  handle  a  street-sweeper's 
broom  for,  say,  four  hours  a  day;  or  a 
Burbank,  or  a  Pasteur,  or  a  Metchnikoff, 
or  a  Huxley,  or  any  one  of  tens  of  thousands 
of  lesser  scientific  men  to  sell  goods  in  a 
state  or  municipal  department  store,  is  a 
notion  which  excites  among  normal  men 
either  derision  or  disgust.  "A  man  of 
science,"  says  John  Fiske,  "should  never 
be  called  upon  to  earn  a  living,  for  that 
is  a  wretched  waste  of  energy  in  which  the 
highest  intellectual  power  is  sure  to  suffer 
serious  detriment  and  runs  a  risk  of  being 
frittered  away  into  hopeless  ruin."  A  so- 
ciety that  should  harness  its  men  of  genius 
to  the  treadmill  of  routine  labor  would 
bring  about  the  immediate  decay  of  scientific 
research  and  investigation,  the  dismantling 
of  our  laboratories  and  museums  and 
observatories  and  the  dumping  into  the 
scrap-heap  of  most,  if  not  all,  the  triumphs 
of  intellectual  endeavor. 

Is  it  not,  on  the  whole,  likely  that  under 
Socialism  we  shall  have  an  enormous  in- 

r  i59i 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

crease  of  social  and  intellectual  service? 
Is  it  not  true  that  most  of  this  service  can 
be  rendered  only  by  men  specially  set  apart 
to  do  it  ?  Is  it  not  likely  that  we  shall  have 
muscular  men  who  can  load  a  steamship 
or  fell  a  tree  better  than  they  can  paint 
a  Sistine  Madonna;  skillful  men  who  can 
run  a  locomotive  or  put  together  the  delicate 
parts  of  a  machine  better  than  they  can 
compose  a  Moonlight  Sonata;  deft  and  nim- 
ble-fingered men  who  can  ply  the  productive 
arts  better  than  they  can  formulate  a  theory 
of  physical  evolution  or  a  theory  of  economic 
influences  upon  history?  Will  it  not  be 
best  that  they  should  do  these  things  to 
the  exclusion  of  other  things,  and  is  it  not 
likely  that  a  society  based  upon  the  foster- 
ing of  the  common  good  will  so  ordain? 
And  will  not  the  thousands  and  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  men  and  women  so  set  apart 
be  "intellectuals"  as  differentiated  from 
manual  laborers?  They  will  be;  and  no 
one  doubts  it  in  his  sober  moments.  It 
is  only  when  an  evil  purpose  is  to  be  served 
by    a   demagogic    plea   that    any  Socialist 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

writer  or  speaker  pretends  to  believe  other- 
wise; or  when  roused  by  a  fanatical  spirit 
that  a  Socialist  follower  does  actually  believe 
it. 

It  ought  to  be  readily  seen  that  in  no 
movement  is  intelligence  so  indispensable, 
and  in  no  movement  is  demagogy  so  harm- 
ful as  in  the  Socialist  movement.  Intelli- 
gence, discipline  and  ability  to  organize — 
these,  according  to  Karl  Kautsky,  in  his 
Social  Revolution,  are  "the  psychological 
prerequisites  for  a  Socialist  society."  He 
reiterates  this  over  and  over  again.  There 
can  be  no  Socialism,  there  cannot  even  be 
a  powerful  Socialist  movement,  without 
these.  "The  proletariat  will  require,"  he 
says,  "high  intelligence,  strong  discipline, 
perfect  organization  of  its  great  masses; 
and  these  must,  at  the  same  time,  have 
become  most  indispensable  in  economic  life 
if  it  is  to  obtain  the  strength  sufficient  to 
overcome  so  formidable  an  opponent." 

Well,  has  the  proletariat  generally  this 
high  intelligence  ?  Is  not  the  chief  Socialist 
activity — that  of  educating  the  non-Socialist 
11  [  161  ] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

workers — based  upon  the  assumption  that 
the  proletariat  generally  has  not  this  needed 
intelligence?  Do  you  not  admit  this  in 
declaring  that  the  Socialist  part  of  the 
proletariat  is  the  most  intelligent  part  of 
it?  Why  do  you  tell  the  non-Socialist 
proletariat  that  what  it  most  needs  is  en- 
lightenment; why  do  you  call  upon  it  to 
read  and  think,  and  why  do  you  bombard 
it  with  books  and  pamphlets  ? 

Because  in  spite  of  your  proneness  now 
and  then  to  play  the  demagogue,  or  to 
listen  to  demagogues,  you  really  value 
intelligence  as  the  lever  by  which  the 
proletariat  is  to  be  emancipated.  And  as 
you  value  intelligence  so  also  do  you  value, 
at  least  in  your  more  sober  moments,  the 
men  who  have  this  intelligence,  and  you 
advance  them  to  the  places  of  responsibility 
and  trust  in  your  movement. 

The  Socialist  movement  needs  not  only 
a  constantly  increasing  intelligence  in  the 
mass,  but  the  exceptional  intelligence  of 
individual  men.  It  does  not  matter  whether 
this  intelligence  is  that  of  individuals  from 

[162] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

the  proletariat's  own  ranks,  or  of  individuals 
from  other  classes  who  give  themselves 
to  the  workers'  cause.  Theoretically,  it 
might  be  better  that  this  intelligence  should 
be  developed  within  the  ranks  of  the  manual 
working  class,  rather  than  imported  from 
the  professional  class.  It  would  seem,  in- 
deed, on  first  thought,  that  the  fundamental 
tactic  of  the  Socialist  movement,  that  of 
uncompromising  class  conflict,  could  have 
originated  only  among  the  manual  workers. 
And  yet  it  is  a  fact  which  the  whole  history 
of  the  movement  affirms,  that  this  tactic  has 
come  to  the  movement  from  outside — that 
the  philosophy  of  it  and  the  reasons  for 
it  have  been  given  by  educated  men.  The 
very  nature  of  the  industrial  worker's  toil 
prompts  him  to  seek  an  immediate  minor 
advantage  even  at  the  expense  of  an  ultimate 
greater  advantage.  Why  else  is  it  that 
in  this  nation  there  are  approximately 
2,000,000  members  of  organized  labor  and 
only  53,000  members  of  the  Socialist  party  ? 
You  forget  your  own  principle  of  the 
economic  interpretation  of  history;  you  for- 

[163] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

get  that  the  manual  worker  is,  by  the  nature 
of  his  environment  and  occupation,  an 
opportunist.  You  forget  also  that  it  is 
the  prime  distinction  of  the  so-called  "intel- 
lectuals" who  have  come  into  the  move- 
ment that  they  have  given  the  workers  such 
concepts  as  those  of  class  consciousness,  of 
the  class  struggle  and  of  uncompromising 
tactics. 

Between  these  men  and  the  uninstructed 
proletariat  there  is  naturally  little  antagon- 
ism. In  general,  whatever  suspicion  has 
been  created,  whatever  antagonism  has 
been  awakened,  has  been  accomplished 
through  demagogy  working  for  evil  ends. 
It  needs  to  be  said  plainly  that  there  is  no 
more  shameless  misleader  of  the  Socialist 
proletariat  than  the  demagogue  who  tries 
to  create  antagonism  against  the  educated 
men  in  the  movement.  In  the  bourgeois 
world,  the  man  of  high  intellectual  gifts 
is  too  frequently  a  retainer  of  the  capitalist 
class,  and  is  thus  an  agent  employed  against 
the  workman.  But  in  the  Socialist  move- 
ment he  plays  no  such  part.     He  is  simply 

[164] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

a  soldier  in  the  Socialist  army,  who  happens 
to  be  furnished  with  better  weapons  for 
use  against  the  common  foe.  The  very 
use  of  the  term  "intellectual"  as  a  name 
here  in  America  is  ignorant  and  absurd. 
In  France,  where  numbers  of  educated 
men  have  come  into  the  movement  for  the 
sake  of  personal  advancement,  there  is 
some  justification  for  using  the  term  in 
a  depreciatory  sense.  It  was  there  that 
the  term  was  first  so  employed,  and  it  is 
the  meaning  given  there  that  the  demagogue 
has  vaguely  in  mind  when  he  uses  it  here. 
But  there  is  no  justification  for  its  use  in 
that  sense  in  America.  The  movement 
here  is  as  yet  too  small  to  draw  men  with 
that  motive.  Nor  would  the  name  ever 
have  been  so  used  here  but  for  the  presence 
in  the  movement  of  numbers  of  crafty  men, 
who  have  made  it  a  means  of  awakening 
prejudice  against  others  more  useful  than 
themselves. 

Can  you  imagine  what  the  Socialist 
movement  would  be  without  its  educated 
men?     Can  you   imagine   where   it  would 

[165] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

be  to-day  without  its  Marx,  its  Engels,  its 
Lassalle,  its  Liebknecht,  its  Kautsky,  its 
Adler  and  Labriola  and  a  hundred  others 
who  could  be  named?  What  would  the 
movement  in  Russia  be  without  its  "  in- 
tellectuals "  ?  Where  would  the  demagogues 
themselves  have  got  the  few  ideas  and 
the  few  phrases  which  constitute  their 
mental  and  vocal  machinery?  Could  any 
man  working  at  the  forge  or  bench  have 
written  Das  Kapital  ?  Who  are  they  who 
formulate  the  inarticulate  instincts  of  the 
working  class,  who  carry  its  cause  into  the 
public  arenas,  who  define  its  mission,  who 
point  out  its  goal,  who  warn  it  what  gifts 
and  lures  to  reject  and  what  demands  to 
insist  upon,  who  tell  it  that  its  salvation  is 
to  come  only  by  carrying  on  its  combat 
without  compromise  ?  Are  they  the  workers 
themselves?  Rarely.  The  men  who  do 
these  things  are  the  "intellectuals" — the 
men  of  intelligence  and  ability  who  come 
into  the  movement  from  other  classes.  The 
proletariat  is  for  the  most  part  unin- 
structed;  and  just    to  the  extent  that  it  is 

[166] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

uninstructed  it  is  the  sport  and  plaything 
of  its  political  and  economic  masters.  It 
fights  their  battles,  it  permits  itself  to  be 
robbed  and  starved  and  beaten,  it  throws 
itself  to  the  support  of  adventurers  and  dem- 
agogues. Only  as  it  is  instructed  by 
trained  intelligence  does  it  learn  how  to 
protect  itself,  or  advance  toward  its  eman- 
cipation. 

The  Socialist  movement  is  of  necessity 
a  working-class  movement.  It  will  remain 
that,  no  matter  what  any  one  wishes  or 
fears.  But  the  working  class  is  something 
greater  and  broader  than  the  aggregate  of 
persons  who  do  manual  labor.  And  the 
Socialist  movement  is  even  greater  and 
broader  than  the  working  class.  There  is 
no  more  place  for  class  distinctions  in  that 
movement  than  there  will  be  in  the  Socialist 
republic.  There  is  no  room  in  that  move- 
ment for  the  demagogue.  There  is  no 
room  for  the  plea  that  ignorance  is  better 
than  intelligence,  that  incompetency  is  better 
than  efficiency,  that  the  man  who  works 
with  his  hands  is  by  reason  of  the  nature 

[167] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

of  his  employment  better  than  the  man  who 
writes  or  teaches  or  organizes  or  plans, 
or  who  does  any  other  useful  service  to 
society.  To  a  real  Socialist,  it  is  a  humilia- 
tion to  feel  the  necessity  of  uttering  these 
words.  But  until  you  learn  them,  until 
you  also  learn  to  put  down  with  contempt 
every  manifestation  of  the  fetish-worship 
of  ignorance,  you  are  waging  a  futile  struggle 
in  the  dark.  You  are  battling,  not  against 
Capitalism,  but  against  Socialism. 

So  much  for  the  matter  of  proletarian 
vs.  "intellectual."  If  I  have  dwelt  overlong 
upon  it,  I  have  done  so  because  it  seems 
to  me  the  most  serious  subject  of  present 
concern  to  the  movement.  But  the  other 
matters  I  have  mentioned  need  also  your 
conscientious  thought.  What  profits  it  that 
you  learn  to  deride  the  jingoism  of  a  nation, 
if  you  exalt  the  jingoism  of  a  party  and  a 
class  ?  Is  it  well  to  forswear  your  individual 
judgment  of  right  and  wrong  and  servilely 
to  bind  yourselves  to  accept  as  right  the 
momentary  caprice  and  mis  judgment  of 
numbers  ?     Is  it  not  a  better  proof  of  loyalty 

[168] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

to  your  cause  to  reject  the  conventional 
jingo  phrase,  and  to  say,  with  Carl  Schurz, 
"My  nation  [or  party  or  class],  when  right, 
to  be  kept  right;  when  wrong  to  be  set 
right"?  And  is  it  well  or  wise,  for  a 
trumpery  appearance  of  momentary  gain, 
with  all  its  evil  consequences  in  the  future, 
to  make  yourselves  parties  to  the  wrongful 
acts  of  your  fellows?  In  accepting  as  a 
sacred  principle  the  sentiment  of  undeviat- 
ing  party  regularity,  you  are  called  upon 
to  do  just  that  thing. 

Is  it  well,  either,  to  accept  the  too  com- 
mon conviction  in  the  Socialist  movement 
that  all  needful  truth  has  been  discovered, 
and  that  most  of  it  is  to  be  found  within  the 
pages  of  Karl  Marx?  With  what  face  can 
you  laugh  at  religious  zealots  when  they 
appeal  to  their  holy  books?  In  Marx  you 
find  what  you  find  in  the  Christian  apostles : 
though  at  times  he  deprecates  undue  faith 
in  the  immediacy  of  great  changes,  yet  the 
refrain,  "The  time  is  at  hand!"  is  reiterated 
throughout  his  work.  He  failed  in  some 
of  his  prophecies;  he  wrote  in  a  formative 

[169] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

time  when  no  man  could  possibly  measure 
all  the  current  tendencies;  there  is  much 
in  his  pages  which,  if  not  absolutely  con- 
tradictory, at  least  furnishes  the  material 
for  contradictory  schools  of  Marxists.  Yet 
the  orthodox  are  asked  to  accept  his  literal 
words  as  the  alpha  and  omega,  the  beginning 
and  the  end.  No  more  Socialist  books 
should  be  written,  say  some ;  what  is  needed 
is  the  learning  of  Marx  by  rote.  To  every 
voicing  of  inquiry  or  doubt  comes  the 
Mohammedan  response,  "It  is  written," 
or  "There  is  no  god  but  the  Allah  of  Eco- 
nomic Force,  and  Karl  Marx  is  his  prophet." 
If  the  substance  is  in  the  Koran,  what  is 
newly  written  is  unnecessary;  if  not  there, 
it  is  false,  and  in  neither  case  is  it  to 
be  tolerated.  Do  history  and  science  make 
possible  the  sustaining  of  any  such  assump- 
tion of  infallibility?  And  yet  belief  in 
that  infallibility  you  seek  to  make  a  Socialist 
article  of  creed. 

What  profits  it,  too,  that  you  are  taught 
to  look  with  tolerant  scorn  upon  Owen  and 
Fourier   and   Saint-Simon   as   "  Utopians," 

[170] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

if  in  your  imagination  of  the  Socialist  state 
you  endow  it  with  conditions  of  bliss  which 
even  a  Mohammedan  dervish  or  a  Christian 
hermit  hesitates  to  picture  in  his  imagined 
heaven?  To  hear  your  rhapsodies,  one 
might  think  that  under  Socialism  pain  would 
be  eliminated,  that  strife  would  cease,  and 
that  pride  and  anger  and  self-seeking  and 
jealousy  and  hate  and  treachery  would  no 
more  be  known,  and  that  every  one  would 
be  learned  and  kind  and  just.  One  sort  of 
utopianism  you  may  have  outgrown;  but 
in  its  place  you  have  developed  one  that  is 
more  at  variance  with  the  facts  of  life  than 
was  that  of  the  early  Socialists.  We  may 
rightly  expect  that  under  Socialism  vast 
changes  in  human  conditions  will  take 
place.  We  may  rightly  expect  the  elimina- 
tion of  poverty,  the  widening  of  opportu- 
nities for  self-development,  the  realization 
of  greater  freedom.  And  for  these  expecta- 
tions and  ideals  men  nobly  give  themselves 
to  the  cause,  to  live  for  it  and  to  die  for  it. 
But  men  are  still  men,  under  whatever 
economic  system  they  live.     The  fratricidal 

[171] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

struggle  for  the  means  of  life  may  be  termi- 
nated, and  men  may  still  reveal  the  ape  and 
the  tiger.  In  the  Socialist  movement  the 
economic  motive  for  internal  strife  is  but 
rarely,  if  ever,  present.  And  yet  who  will  care 
to  say  that  strife  has  therein  been  eliminated, 
or  that  the  conduct  of  Socialists  toward  one 
another  differs  in  any  material  degree  from 
that  of  the  members  of  other  parties  ?  You 
will  do  well  to  confine  your  dreams  within 
scientific  bounds. 

Fanaticism  has  always  been  a  curse  to 
the  race,  and  the  employment  of  ill  means 
for  supposedly  good  ends  a  greater  one. 
Yet  how  often  you  sanction  the  one  and 
condone  the  other.  That  in  a  movement 
professing  to  be  scientific  there  should  be 
the  slightest  tolerance  for  that  mad  violence 
of  the  emotions,  that  dethronement  of 
reason,  which  we  know  as  fanaticism,  is  an 
anomaly.  Yet  perhaps  everywhere,  outside 
Milwaukee,  in  the  Socialist  party  of  America 
there  is  always  that  degree  of  latent 
fanaticism  which  makes  it  possible  at  any 
moment,  by  the  raising  of  a  false  issue  or 

[172] 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

the  making  of  a  false  charge,  to  foment 
a  bitter  and  prolonged  strife.  How  many 
utterly  needless  controversies  have  been 
waged  these  last  ten  years !  Though  some 
of  them  arose  spontaneously,  many  were 
deliberately  planned  for  evil  ends.  And 
yet  few  of  them  could  have  arisen,  or  could 
have  been  fought  with  such  flaming  anger, 
but  for  the  latent  fanaticism  in  the  ranks. 
But  fanaticism,  evil  as  it  is,  is  less  of  a 
violation  of  a  scientific  creed  than  is  Jesuitry. 
After  all,  we  cannot  be  sure  about  our 
goals — about  the  ends  for  which  we  strive. 
Every  end  for  which  man  has  striven  has 
been  found,  when  achieved,  or  partly 
achieved,  a  disappointment.  Every  politi- 
cal or  social  or  religious  cause,  from  the 
triumph  of  which  men  have  expected  so 
much,  has  been  found  in  victory  to  be  less 
than  the  thing  imagined.  Often  it  has  been 
found  to  be  the  opposite  of  what  men  desired. 
Socialism  itself  will  prove  a  disappointment 
to  its  devotees.  But  every  advancement 
of  ethical  standards  has  been  a  permanent 
gain.     Every    moralization    of   the    means 

[173] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

which  men  employ  in  their  contests — 
whether  in  war,  or  politics  or  religion — 
has  lifted  up  the  race.  Shall  we  not  say 
then,  with  Prof.  Felix  Adler,  that  means 
are  the  important  thing  and  that  ends  are 
the  less  important  thing?  Let  us  with 
might  and  main  strive  for  the  ideal  which 
possesses  us;  but  let  us  do  it  with  a  willing- 
ness to  suffer  an  endless  chain  of  defeats 
rather  than  compromise  the  means  which 
we  employ — knowing  that  the  sanctioning 
of  fanaticism  or  the  condonation  of  Jesuitry 
invariably  reacts  upon  our  cause. 

Let  us  also  be  tolerant  in  our  own  ranks 
of  that  freedom  of  thought  and  of  speech 
which  we  so  insistently  claim  for  ourselves 
against  the  ruling  powers.  Let  us  further- 
more be  careful  about  ascribing  to  capital- 
ism such  prevailing  ethical  standards  as 
happen  not  to  please  us — standards  which 
often  have  a  life  history  contemporaneous 
with  civilized  man.  Let  us  be  equally 
careful  not  to  ascribe  to  capitalism  vices 
innate  in  human  nature  and  from  which 
mankind  has  never  been  free.     An  indict- 


TO  SOME  SOCIALISTS 

ment  is  best  drawn  when  most  exact; 
and  the  capitalist  system,  with  its  record 
of  blood  and  oppression,  has  enough  in  its 
history  to  warrant  conviction  and  the  death 
sentence  without  swelling  the  indictment 
with  unprovable  charges.  Let  us  further- 
more remember  always  that  the  appeal  to 
the  working  class  to  awaken  to  a  conscious- 
ness of  its  numbers  and  power — to  a  sense 
of  its  brute  strength — is  a  futile  appeal, 
at  once  barbarous  and  ineffective;  that  it 
is  only  by  an  appeal  to  its  sense  of  justice 
that  an  effective  response  is  gained;  and 
that  even  if  the  fact  were  otherwise  the  result 
would  be  fatal  to  the  Socialist  ideal.  And 
lastly,  let  us  remember  that  the  enlightened 
class  struggle  of  to-day  is  not  a  medieval 
peasants'  revolt,  but  the  struggle  of  a  class 
which  in  the  main  identifies  its  interests 
with  the  ultimate  interests  of  all  men;  and 
that  in  so  far  as  it  does  this  it  makes  for  the 
Socialist  republic,  and  in  so  far  as  it  fails 
to  do  this  it  makes  for  reaction  and  chaos. 
This  Socialist  movement  is  slowly,  almost 
imperceptibly,    but    surely    day    by    day, 

[175] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

molding  and  making  "  a  noble  and  puissant 
nation" — a  nation  that  develops  internation- 
ally within  and  despite  the  many  political 
states  that  now  separate  men  from  their 
fellows;  a  nation  that  welds  the  conflicting 
wills  and  prejudices  of  men  into  a  common 
spirit  and  that  presages  a  commonwealth 
which  shall  know  not  race  nor  class  nor 
frontier  or  boundary.  In  the  "mighty 
youth"  of  this  nation  there  must  inevitably 
arise  many  evils  and  confusions — strivings 
at  cross  purposes,  a  babel  of  voices  about 
the  work  in  hand ;  in  the  minds  of  the  build- 
ers wild  illusions  and  false  estimates,  and 
in  their  hearts  fierce  prejudices  and  bitter 
hates.  We  may  conveniently  blind  our- 
selves to  these  evils;  we  may  nurture  a 
false  pride  which  forbids  their  recognition, 
or  their  mention  when  recognized.  But  we 
do  so  to  the  loss  of  the  movement  and  of  the 
nascent  nation  of  which  the  movement  is  the 
directing  force.  For  the  flaws  and  faults 
built  into  the  foundation  weaken  the  super- 
structure for  all  time.  Be  it  our  mission  so 
to  build  that  the  structure  shall  endure. 

[176] 


CHAPTER  V 

TO    MR.    JOHN    SMITH,    WORKINGMAN 

They  tell  me,  Mr.  Smith,  that  you  are 
not  a  Socialist.  Why  aren't  you?  Is  it 
because  your  preacher,  or  your  local  poli- 
tician, has  told  you  that  Socialism  isn't 
at  all  "the  right  thing"?  Or  have  you 
read  somewhere  the  statement  of  some 
college  head  that  Socialism  won't  do? 
Or  has  the  great  Theodore  himself  in- 
fluenced you  by  means  of  one  of  his  pro- 
nouncements regarding  undesirable  citizens 
and  undesirable  social  systems?  Or  are 
you  merely  indifferent  to  other  than  your 
immediate  concerns  ? 

They  tell  me,  also,  that  you  are  a  member 
of  the  union  in  your  trade.  So  far,  so  good. 
You  recognize  at  least  a  part  of  your 
interests  as  against  those  of  your  employers. 
As  a  member  of  your  union  you  are  engaged 

12  [177] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

in  a  struggle  for  better  conditions,  shorter 
hours  and  higher  wages.  Or  if  it  happens 
that  the  conditions,  hours  and  wages  in  your 
trade  are  about  as  favorable  as  you  can  for 
the  time  expect,  you  are  at  least  engaged 
in  a  contest  to  maintain  them  at  their  present 
level.  You  recognize  a  common  interest 
with  your  fellows  in  your  own  trade.  Isn't 
it  about  time  now  to  consider  a  wider  and 
fuller  community  of  interest — a  oneness  of 
interest  with  all  men  who  work  for  wages  ? 
Trade-unionism  is  the  first  manifestation 
of  this  sense  of  oneness  of  interest  among 
the  workers.  Long  before  the  workmen 
have  reached  a  sense  of  the  need  of  a  reor- 
ganized social  system,  their  immediate  needs 
in  the  matter  of  wages,  hours  and  conditions 
prompt  them  to  associate  for  offense  and 
defense  against  their  employers.  Have  you 
any  employer  in  your  union?  Certainly 
not — not  even  the  best  of  the  "good" 
employers.  Common  sense  tells  you  that 
the  employer  has  one  set  of  interests,  while 
you  have  a  different  set  of  interests.  Con- 
sequently you  do  not  think  it  best  for  the 

[178] 


JOHN  SMITH,  WORKINGMAN 

welfare  of  your  union  to  include  employers 
in  its  membership. 

That  difference  of  interest,  John,  is  one 
that  runs  throughout  all  the  processes  of 
modern  society.  You  will  realize  the  fact 
when  you  stop  to  think  about  it.  The 
trouble  is,  you  haven't  thought  much  about 
it.  You  go  along  from  day  to  day,  looking 
up  for  counsel  and  wisdom  to  this  or  that 
statesman  or  preacher  or  editor  or  college 
dignitary.  These  are  all  very  profound 
men,  no  doubt,  but  the  trouble  for  you  is 
that  they  all  live  in  a  different  world  from 
yours;  they  do  not  do  the  kind  of  work 
you  do  or  get  the  kind  of  pay  you  do;  they 
do  not  see  life  from  your  standpoint;  and 
consequently  the  things  they  tell  you  to 
believe  and  to  do  are  pretty  apt  to  be  bad 
for  you.  You  know,  for  instance,  without 
any  one  telling  you,  that  your  employer's 
interests  in  the  matter  of  hours,  wages  and 
conditions  in  your  particular  trade  are 
antagonistic  to  your  own  interests.  Yet 
you  permit  yourself  to  be  persuaded  by 
plausible    advisers    from    your    employer's 

[179] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

class  that  in  a  thousand  other  matters  you 
have  identical  interests  with  your  employer; 
that  you  may,  without  loss,  vote  for  his 
candidates  for  the  legislature,  Congress 
and  the  Presidency. 

That  word  "class"  may  trouble  you 
somewhat.  For  perhaps  you  have  heard 
that  it  is  a  wicked  and  seditious  word,  used 
only  by  disturbers  of  the  peace  and  fomenters 
of  hatred.  But  it  ought  not  to  trouble 
you,  no  matter  what  warnings  you  have 
heard.  For  it  expresses  a  very  manifest 
and  concrete  thing  in  this  life  of  ours. 
A  class — that  is,  an  economic  class — is  an 
aggregate  of  persons  whose  specific  eco- 
nomic functions  and  interests  are  similar. 
We  may  all  have  similar  general  interests; 
we  may  all  desire  peace,  health  and  plenty; 
but  our  specific  interests  vary  and  conflict 
in  accord  with  the  different  methods  by 
which  we  make  a  living.  We  call  those 
aggregates  of  persons  whose  functions  and 
interests  differ  but  in  degree,  and  not  in 
kind,  economic  groups  or  sections;  but 
those  larger  divisions,  founded  upon  funda- 

r  i8oi 


JOHN   SMITH,   WORKINGMAN 

mental   differences  in  modes  of  getting  a 
living,  we  call  economic  classes. 

Your  employer,  for  instance,  whose  inter- 
ests you  recognize  as  different  from  your 
own,  is  an  owner  of  machinery  and  tools,  up- 
on which  you  work  for  a  wage.  You  make 
goods  for  him,  which  he  sells  in  the  market, 
paying  you  a  part  of  their  value  and  keeping 
a  part  for  himself.  Or  he  may  be  the  owner 
of  a  store  or  a  transportation  system  or 
a  help-employing  farm.  We  call  this  man 
a  member  of  the  owning  or  the  capitalist 
class.  He  may  be  a  small  employer — that  is, 
he  may  be  a  comparatively  poor  man  and 
own  very  little  machinery  or  a  very  small 
store;  we  should  then  call  him  a  middle- 
class  man,  or  a  petty  manufacturer  or  petty 
dealer.  Or  he  may  be  a  great  employer — an 
owner  of  very  much  machinery,  or  a  very  large 
store,  and  we  should  then  call  him  a  magnate. 
But  middle  class  and  magnate  class  are  after 
all  only  two  groups  of  the  great  owning  class, 
or  capitalist  class,  and  their  fundamental  in- 
terests are  the  same.  You,  on  the  other  hand, 
who  have  no  machinery  or  no  business  plant, 

[181] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

and  must  therefore,  in  order  to  live,  work 
for  the  capitalist,  we  call  a  working-class 
man,  or  a  wage-earning  producer,  or  a 
proletarian.  No  matter  what  the  Eminent 
Persons  tell  you,  the  fact  of  economic 
classes  is  something  you  cannot  afford  to 
lose  sight  of  for  a  single  moment. 

I  said  that  you  allow  yourself  to  be  per- 
suaded that  in  a  thousand  matters  outside 
your  immediate  trade  you  have  interests  iden- 
tical with  those  of  your  employer.  Let  us  see 
if  you  have  such  identical  interests.  To  look 
into  the  matter  we  shall  have  to  take  some 
account  of  this  organization  of  things  we  call 
society,  and  particularly  of  that  division  of 
it  known  as  the  working  class. 

Every  social  state,  any  time  and  any- 
where, is  based  upon  certain  arrangements 
for  producing  and  distributing  goods.  The 
sum  of  these  arrangements  in  any  particular 
time  is  known  as  an  economic  system. 
Every  economic  system  builds  up  a  super- 
structure of  law,  custom  and  administra- 
tion. In  other  words,  any  particular  social 
system,  including  the  general  form  of  govern- 

[  182  ] 


JOHN  SMITH,  WORKINGMAN 

ment,  will  be  found  to  be  a  reflex  of  the 
economic  system  that  underlies  it.  A  slave 
system  produces  one  sort  of  society  and 
government,  a  serf  system  another,  and  a 
wage  system  another  yet.  Sometimes,  as 
in  the  United  States  previous  to  the  Civil 
War,  the  anomaly  is  shown  of  two  widely 
different  societies,  founded  upon  radically 
different  economic  systems,  existing  side 
by  side  under  one  general  government. 
The  anomaly  was  rendered  possible  only  by 
State  autonomy,  which  permitted  political 
forms  and  institutions  in  the  Southern 
States  to  accord  with  the  slave  system  and 
political  forms  and  institutions  in  the  North- 
ern States  to  accord  with  the  wage  system. 
No  wonder  that  Abraham  Lincoln  spoke 
of  the  nation  as  a  house  divided  against 
itself  and  declared  that  it  could  not  stand. 
On  the  other  hand,  political  forms  may 
for  a  time  differ  somewhat  in  two  countries 
or  among  two  peoples  with  like  economic 
systems.  But  in  the  main,  even  though  one 
nation  may  be  headed  by  a  powerless  king 
and  the  other  by  a  powerful  president,  the 

[183] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

general  social  structure,  the  code  of  laws,  the 
mode  of  administration,  the  standards  of 
right  and  wrong,  in  the  one  nation  will  re- 
semble those  of  the  other  nation  just  about  in 
proportion  as  the  underlying  economic  sys- 
tems of  the  two  nations  resemble  each  other. 
The  economic  system  under  which  we 
live,  as  you  are  aware,  John,  is  known  as 
the  capitalist  system.  It  is  not  an  old 
system,  as  systems  go,  dating  back  only 
about  150  years.  That  is,  its  infancy  began 
about  that  long  ago.  But  it  was  a  good 
while  in  its  infancy;  and  the  time  is  short, 
say  a  few  decades,  since  it  reached  any- 
thing like  its  present  power.  No  one  is 
criminally  responsible  for  it.  Like  Topsy, 
it  just  grew,  for  it  couldn't  help  growing. 
It  got  its  start  when  the  first  great  inventions 
were  made  and  when  steam  was  applied 
to  factory  work.  The  result  of  these 
changes  was  to  take  the  workman  away 
from  his  tools  and  to  lodge  him  in  a  factory 
or  machine  shop,  where  he  had  to  work 
upon  machines  owned  by  other  men.  He 
had  to  do  this  or  starve.     He  had  to  give 

[184] 


JOHN  SMITH,  WORKINGMAN 

over  the  home  work  which  before  he  had 
done  with  his  own  tools,  and  take  the  wages 
offered  him  by  the  owner  of  the  machines. 

The  advantage  of  this  mode  of  producing 
goods  was  very  soon  apparent.  That  is,  the 
advantage  to  the  owner.  The  advantage  to 
the  worker  was  not  so  marked.  But  facto- 
ries increased  in  number,  capital  gradually 
became  concentrated,  and  there  was  soon 
created  a  large  class  of  workers  owning  little 
or  nothing  and  having  no  means  of  making 
a  living  except  by  working  for  others. 

This  class  has  persisted  to  the  present 
time,  constantly  increasing  its  numbers 
relative  to  the  whole  population.  It 
now  numbers,  in  the  United  States,  some 
20,234,000  persons  out  of  some  29,073,000 
persons  engaged  in  gainful  occupations.  It 
is  the  class  to  which  you  belong,  John,  even 
though  you  are  not  wholly  aware  of  the  fact 
— even  though  you  are  inclined  to  take  the 
words  of  a  Strenuous  and  Distinguished 
Person  that  you  are  just  as  good  as  anyone 
else,  and  that  nothing  else  than  the  Square 
Deal  is  ever  dealt  out  to  you. 

[185] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

Let  us  now  consider  somewhat  the  situa- 
tion and  composition  of  this  class.  First, 
we  want  a  definition,  and  that  is  a  hard 
thing  to  frame,  because  different  persons 
mean  very  different  things  when  they  speak 
of  the  working  class.  Roughly,  the  term 
may  be  said  to  mean  the  aggregate  of 
persons  employed  for  wages  at  more  or  less 
common  tasks.  Uncommon  tasks,  requir- 
ing exceptional  training,  or  education,  or 
ability  to  manage  men  or  affairs,  are  of 
course  outside  the  working-class  province. 
Perhaps  we  may  better  say  that  the  term 
means  the  aggregate  of  persons  who  have 
nothing  to  barter  for  a  livelihood  but  their 
muscle  power  and  manual  skill,  and  who 
are  employed  for  wages  at  common  tasks 
set  by  other  men.  This  class  thus  com- 
prises the  toilers  in  the  more  common  cleri- 
cal and  distributive  tasks  in  trade  and 
transportation,  the  manual  toilers  in  the 
manufacturing,  mechanical  and  mining  in- 
dustries, in  personal  and  domestic  service 
and  miscellaneous  day  labor,  and  hired 
persons  in  agriculture  and  the  other  rural 

[186] 


JOHN  SMITH,  WORKINGMAN 

industries.  Mr.  Lucien  Sanial,  the  well- 
known  statistician,  makes  their  number  in 
1900,  20,393,137.  My  own  figures  are 
almost  identical.  Rearranging  the  census 
groups  in  order  to  separate,  in  so  far  as 
may  be  done,  employer  from  employed,  the 
numbers  of  the  groups  in  this  class  and 
their  rate  of  increase  from  1890  to  1900 
appear  as  follows: 

THE  WORKING  CLASS. 


Per  cent, 
of  increase 

No. 

1900 

1800 

Clerical    and    distributive 
workers 

48.4 

23.8 

26.3 
44.7 
37.4 

3,825,575 

6,538,147 

2,618,910 
4,623,157 
2,629,262 

2,578,087 

Mechanical,      mfg.     and 
mining  workers 

Personal     and     domestic 
workers 

5,279,586 
2,072,540 

Farm  and  rural  workers  . 
General  workers 

*3,194,073 
1,913,373 

Total 

34.4 

20,234,851 

15,037,659 

*The  officials  of  the  census  of  1900  believe  that  approx- 
imately 582,522  children  engaged  in  farm  labor  were 
omitted  from  enumeration  in  1890. 

[187] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

You  will  notice  that  the  clerical  and 
distributive  workers  show  the  greatest  per- 
centage of  increase.  The  fact  is  a  striking 
illustration  of  the  increasing  importance 
of  trade  and  transportation  as  compared 
with  mere  production.  Fewer  men  are 
needed  in  making  things,  and  more  men  are 
needed  in  selling  and  advertising  and  deliv- 
ering things.  The  productive  workers  in 
shop  and  factory  not  only  show  the  lowest 
rate  of  increase  among  the  workers,  but 
among  the  total  of  gainfully  occupied  per- 
sons their  proportion  has  actually  fallen 
off.  They  formed  23.2  per  cent,  of  this 
total  in  1890,  but  in  1900  they  formed  but 
22.5  per  cent.  Production  has  enormously 
increased,  but  the  number  of  producers 
advances  by  a  rate  only  slightly  greater 
than  that  of  the  population.  Consolidation 
of  industries  and  the  perfecting  of  machinery 
and  of  trade  processes  have  worked  their 
way  with  a  savage  relentlessness,  displacing 
many  men.  The  extent  of  this  displace- 
ment is  in  many  industries  enormous.  In 
flouring  and  grist  mills  and  in  the  manu- 

[188] 


JOHN   SMITH,  WORKINGMAN 

facture  of  dye-stuffs  and  extracts  it  is  22 
per  cent.;  in  canning  and  preserving  fruits 
and  vegetables,  27  per  cent. ;  in  brick-  and 
tile-making  and  in  the  manufacture  of 
wool  hats,  40  per  cent. ;  in  the  manufacture 
of  wrought  pipe,  52  per  cent.;  of  billiard 
tables  and  materials,  55  per  cent.;  of  cut 
and  wrought  nails,  73  per  cent.,  and  of 
wire,  80  per  cent.  In  22  of  the  specific 
census  groups  of  manufacturing,  mechan- 
ical and  mining  workers,  employing 
1,658,526  workers  in  1890,  there  was  a 
decrease  of  100,000  by  1900. 

Other  branches  of  production  partly  com- 
pensate for  this  loss.  But  these  gains  have 
been  mostly  among  the  new  and  developing 
industries.  The  older  and  more  stable 
industries  generally  reveal  but  slight,  if 
any,  increases.  This  tendency  toward  dis- 
placement, moreover,  does  not  promise 
to  lessen.  Consolidation  is  as  yet  but  in  its 
dawn,  and  the  possibilities  of  the  machine 
would  seem  to  be  almost  infinite.  Every 
day  sees  some  improvement  in  mechanism, 
and  were  it  not  for  the  thousands  of  inven- 

[189] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

tions  securely  locked  up  for  fear  that  they 
will  make  useless  some  of  the  machinery 
now  in  use,  the  rate  of  improvement  would 
be  much  greater. 

The  growth  in  the  number  of  personal 
and  domestic  workers  is  also  but .  slight. 
Yet  the  increase  of  luxury  is  notorious. 
Perhaps  never  since  the  days  of  the  Caesars 
has  there  been  such  wasteful  expenditure  as 
now.  One  would  expect  to  find  a  tremen- 
dous growth  of  personal  service,  yet  the  total 
number  of  domestic  and  personal  workers 
has  failed  to  hold  its  own  relative  to  the 
other  groups.  It  has  gained  26.3  per  cent, 
in  actual  numbers,  but  its  proportion  of  the 
whole  body  of  occupied  persons  has  fallen 
slightly,  being  but  9.01  per  cent.,  as  against 
9.12  per  cent,  in  1890.  Here  again,  though 
to  a  slighter  extent,  is  concentration  at 
work.  There  is  a  growth  of  collective 
personal  service  instead  of  individual  per- 
sonal service.  The  modern  rush  from 
individual  homes  to  hotels  and  apartment 
houses  results  in  applying  the  services  of 
a   few   servants    to    many   families.     One 

[190] 


JOHN  SMITH,  WORKINGMAN 

servant  does  service  for  many  masters,  and 
twenty  servants  in  a  modern  hotel  probably 
do  the  work  which  would  employ  one  hun- 
dred in  a  society  living  in  individual  homes. 

The  farm  and  rural  workers  numbered 
one-fifth  of  the  total,  and  apparently  they  in- 
creased in  numbers  by  44.7  per  cent.  But  if 
the  surmise  of  the  census  officials  is  correct, 
and  it  probably  is,  that  nearly  600,000 
workers  were  omitted  in  the  preceding 
census — the  increase  would  be  less  than  23 
per  cent.  Last  come  the  general  laborers, 
with  an  increase  of  37.4  per  cent.  From 
numbering  8.41  per  cent,  of  all  occupied 
persons  in  1890,  they  now  number  9.04  per 
cent.  The  burden  and  hardship  of  the  pres- 
ent order  rests  most  heavily  upon  these 
workers.  Toolless,  unskilled,  unorganized, 
overworked  and  underpaid,  the  first  sufferers 
from  a  depression  in  business  and  the  last 
to  benefit  by  better  times,  they  are  pecul- 
iarly the  victims  of  the  capitalist  system. 

This  working  class  numbers  nearly  70 
per  cent,  of  the  total  of  gainfully  occupied 
persons.     While  two  of  its  larger  groups — 

[191] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

those  of  the  factory  and  shop  workers  and 
of  personal  and  domestic  workers — increase 
but  slowly,  actually  declining  proportion- 
ately, the  class  as  a  whole  increases  steadily 
at  the  expense  of  every  other  class.  Though 
it  is  commonly  called  the  "working  class," 
a  more  scientific  designation  would  be  the 
"workable"  class.  For  its  units,  no  matter 
how  eager  they  may  be  for  employment, 
are  worked  only  when  capital  so  determines, 
and  capital  so  determines  only  when  it 
sees  a  probable  profit  ahead.  The  workers 
have  no  means  of  creating  or  controlling 
opportunities  for  employment;  they  must 
depend  entirely  upon  capital,  which  owns 
the  tools  and  other  means  of  production; 
and  they  must  therefore  suffer  long  periods 
of  enforced  idleness,  with  the  inevitable 
consequence  of  privation  and  suffering. 
The  statistics  of  unemployment  grow  more 
ghastly.  For  the  census  year  1900  no  less 
than  6,468,964  persons  were  idle  for  periods 
of  from  one  to  12  months.  This  number 
is  nearly  one-fourth  of  the  total  of  occupied 
persons  in  the  nation.     Here  are  the  figures : 

[192] 


JOHN  SMITH,  WORKINGMAN 

UNEMPLOYMENT— 1900. 


1  to  3  mos. 

4  to  6  mos. 

7  to  12  mos. 

Total. 

Males    

2,593,136 
584,617 

2,069,546 
485,379 

564,790 
171,496 

5,227,472 
1,241,492 

Females    

Total 

3,177,753 

2,554,925 

736,286 

6,468,964 

The  rate  of  unemployment,  moreover, 
increased  greatly  from  1890  to  1900.  Out 
of  140  occupation  groups  specified  for  males, 
125  show  decreased  percentages  of  employ- 
ment since  1890,  while  out  of  63  groups 
specified  for  females,  56  show  decreased  per- 
centages. Even  among  the  22  exceptions, 
eight  groups  show  virtually  no  increase. 
There  are  thus,  out  of  203  occupation 
groups,  only  14  that  show  a  sensibly  in- 
creased rate  of  employment  when  compared 
with  1890. 

They  tell  you  sometimes — the  Eminent 
Persons  whose  trade  it  is  to  defend  and 
excuse  the  present  system — that  much  of 
this  unemployment  is  voluntary;  that  it  is 
caused  by  the  action  of  the  workers  them- 


13 


[193] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

selves  in  leaving  their  jobs.  These  retainers 
could  not  make  this  statement  with  sincerity 
if  they  studied  the  figures;  but,  then,  of 
course,  it  is  not  their  business  to  study  the 
figures.  As  a  matter  of  record,  strikes 
have  hardly  an  appreciable  effect  upon  the 
general  tables  of  unemployment.  Let  us 
take  an  extreme  case — the  great  building 
trades  strike  of  six  years  ago  in  New  York 
City.  This  strike,  according  to  the  State 
Labor  Commissioner,  was  responsible  for 
10,593  workers  being  idle  at  the  end  of 
September,  1904.  But,  according  to  the 
census,  there  were,  in  1900,  with  no  general 
strike  to  swell  the  record,  257,012  persons 
in  New  York  City  idle  for  more  than  one 
month,  26,021  of  whom  were  idle  for  more 
than  seven  months.  Unusually  great  as 
was  this  number  of  voluntary  idlers  from 
the  building  trades  in  1904,  it  represented 
but  4  per  cent,  of  the  number  unemployed 
during  the  normal  year  of  1900.  For  the 
State  of  New  York  it  represented  but  one 
per  cent.,  and  for  the  nation  only  an  infini- 
tesimal fraction  of  one  per  cent. 

[194] 


JOHN  SMITH,  WORKINGMAN 

This,  then,  is  that  working  class  to  which 
you  belong,  with  something  of  its  composi- 
tion, of  its  relation  to  the  prevailing  system, 
and  of  the  tendencies  that  govern  it.  It 
grows  in  numbers,  both  absolutely  and 
relatively,  but  the  demand  for  its  service 
fails  to  increase  sufficiently  to  keep  the  toilers 
at  work.  The  cheaper  production  that 
comes  from  consolidation  and  improved 
machinery  does  not  provide  the  displaced 
workers  with  other  jobs.  Recurring  periods 
of  stoppages  of  work  are  an  inevitable  part 
of  the  capitalist  system;  and  as  that  system 
develops,  with  increasing  numbers  seeking 
the  labor  that  a  lessening  number  can  per- 
form, the  volume  of  unemployment  must 
necessarily  grow.  This  working  class  has, 
in  the  main,  no  productive  property  of  its 
own.  Some  of  its  members  have  deposits 
in  savings  banks,  and  these  deposits  are 
loaned  to  owners  of  businesses;  but  this 
remote  and  indirect  mode  of  ownership 
does  not  give  the  workers  any  share  in 
the  control  of  these  properties.  Having 
no   ownership,  they  must  work  upon  the 

[195] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

terms  dictated  by  the  owners.  They  must, 
in  the  main,  work  for  low  wages,  for  long 
hours,  under  hard  conditions.  They  must 
brave  danger,  they  must  suffer  hurt,  they 
must  endure  unhealthful  surroundings,  they 
must  undergo  long  periods  of  impoverish- 
ment due  to  shut-downs  which  they  cannot 
prevent.  It  would  seem — would  it  not? — 
that  somethirig  ought  to  be  done  about  it 
all;  and  that  society,  in  its  organized  form, 
the  state,  which  professes  to  be  the  guardian 
of  every  man's  welfare,  should  ordain  a 
fairer  order. 

But  social  and  governmental  systems, 
John,  are  not  run  for  the  benefit  of  the 
working  class.  It  does  not  make  any  differ- 
ence (except  in  degree)  whether  this  working 
class  is  a  slave  class,  a  serf  class  or  a  wage- 
earning  class.  The  social  structure  that 
arises  upon  the  foundations  of  an  economic 
system  is  always  one  that  accords  as  fully  as 
possible  with  the  interests  of  the  owning  class. 
Of  course  the  owning  class  cannot  have 
everything,  particularly  in  a  society  wherein 
the  workers  have  the  ballot.     But  it  takes 

[196] 


JOHN  SMITH,  WORKINGMAN 

everything  it  can  get  and  safely  hold.  Some- 
times, in  its  fatuous  will  to  seize  more  than 
it  can  safely  hold,  it  will  even  jeopard 
all  its  possessions  and  its  very  existence. 

It  matters  little  to  you  if  there  should  be 
temporary  fights  between  factions  of  the 
owning  class.  Just  now  you  may  observe, 
John,  a  very  spirited  conflict,  though  fre- 
quently degenerating  into  sham  battle  and 
farce,  between  the  middle  class  and  the 
magnate  class.  Both  of  them  call  to  you 
for  help.  The  middle  class  warns  you 
against  the  enormous  acquisitions  of  wealth 
and  power  by  the  magnate  class,  and  the 
magnate  class  in  turn  warns  you  against 
any  disturbance  of  the  sacred  relations  of 
business.  One  tells  you  that  the  other, 
if  allowed  to  go  on,  will  soon  own  every- 
thing while  you  own  nothing,  and  the  other 
tells  you  that  unless  you  allow  it  to  go  on 
and  acquire  everything  it  wants,  you  will 
have  no  work  and  wages.  But  both  of 
them  really  want  the  same  system  of  things. 
That  is,  they  both  want  rent,  interest  and 
profit  to  continue;  they  want  the  perpetua- 

[197] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

tion  of  the  wage  system  and  of  competition 
in  the  means  of  life.  But  the  middle  class 
wants  some  restraint  put  upon  the  magnate 
class.  It  likes  the  game,  but  it  wants  the 
rules  changed  so  that  the  best  players  can- 
not make  all  the  winnings.  It  is  all  one 
to  you,  John.  Whichever  wins,  your  share 
will  be  about  the  same.  Both  are  but  fac- 
tions of  the  great  owning  class ;  they  are  con- 
cerned with  their  own  interests,  and  they  are 
not  concerned  with  yours.  When  you  take 
sides  with  either  against  the  other  you  only 
sacrifice  your  own  interests. 

It  is  this  great  owning  class  which  in  the 
main  determines  what  laws  shall  be  passed, 
what  judges,  governors,  legislators,  Con- 
gressmen and  Presidents  shall  be  elected, 
and  what  persons  shall  go  to  jail.  Of 
course  the  two  factions  do  not  always  agree 
about  the  laws  and  the  governors  and 
judges.  Indeed,  they  sometimes  differ  very 
widely.  But  they  take  pains  that  the  en- 
acted law  and  the  elected  person  shall  be 
"safe"  from  the  standpoint  of  capitalism. 
Very  rarely  do  they  so  far  forget  themselves, 

[198] 


JOHN  SMITH,  WORKINGMAN 

in  their  mutual  rivalries,  as  to  let  a  radical 
working-class  law  get  on  the  statute  books 
or  a  radical  working-class  man  get  into  office. 
You  may  have  noted  also  that  this  owning 
class,  for  all  its  powers,  does  not  poll  all 
the  votes.  It  polls,  in  fact,  very  few  of 
them.  Neither  does  it  fight  the  battles  in 
times  of  war.  It  doesn't  have  to.  It  has 
something  better.  It  calls  upon  your  class 
to  vote  its  ballots  and  to  fight  its  battles — 
and  you  cheerfully  and  often  enthusiastically 
comply.  You  wouldn't  if  you  knew  better. 
But  there's  the  rub — you  don't  know  any 
better.  Just  as  far  as  the  economic  con- 
flict is  perceived  by  you — that  is,  to  just 
the  extent  that  the  wages,  hours  and  con- 
ditions in  your  workshop  may  be  influenced 
by  united  action  against  your  employer 
— you  are  awake.  But  though  this  phase 
of  the  economic  conflict  is  the  most  per- 
ceptible one — the  one  easiest  for  a  near- 
sighted man  to  see — it  is  not  the  most 
important  phase. 

Beyond  a  certain  point,   John,  even  as 
you  are  beginning  to  see,  your  union  cannot 

[199]    ' 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

better  your  hours,  wages  or  conditions. 
It  cannot  in  any  case  save  you  from  panics 
and  unemployment.  The  other  men  have 
the  machinery,  the  railroads,  the  steam- 
boats, the  coal-lands  and  about  everything 
else  worth  while.  They  are  able  to  defeat 
you  and  your  comrades  in  the  majority 
of  your  strikes.  From  the  army  of  out- 
of-works,  even  in  these  most  "prosperous" 
times,  they  can  readily  fill  every  place 
vacated  by  you.  What  matters  it  if  you 
need  food,  clothing  and  a  thousand  com- 
forts for  yourselves,  your  wives  and  your 
children?  They  also  need  things — silks, 
wines,  automobiles,  country  estates,  city 
palaces.  They  need  other  things — legisla- 
tors, Congressmen,  judges,  editors  and  the 
like,  and  some  of  these  things  are  expensive. 
And  their  needs  come  first.  If  they  gave  up 
to  your  needs,  there  wouldn't  be  so  much 
left  for  themselves.  Their  first  duty  is  to 
themselves,  as  they  see  it,  and  besides  they 
have  the  power — which  you  haven't — of 
saying  who  shall  be  served  first. 

They  own  and  you  work.     They  deter- 
[200] 


JOHN   SMITH,   WORKINGMAN 

mine  the  rules  of  the  game.  You  obey,  or 
you  don't  play.  Their  will  is  dominant 
throughout  all  the  processes  of  law  and 
administration.  It  will  be  so  as  long  as 
they  own  the  machinery  of  production. 
A  like  dominance  will  prevail  as  long  as 
any  one  part  of  the  community  owns  this 
machinery.  It  would  not  matter  if  to- 
morrow every  present  member  of  the  own- 
ing class  were  dislodged  from  ownership, 
so  long  as  a  new  set  of  owners  were  put  in 
their  places.  Only  by  society  as  a  whole 
assuming  the  ownership  of  the  means  of 
production  and  distribution  will  it  be  pos- 
sible for  you  to  get  your  rightful  share  of 
the  product  of  your  toil.  Only  so  will  it 
be  possible  for  you  even  to  be  sure  of  the 
opportunity  of  toil  when  you  want  it. 

But  you  cannot  bring  about  any  such 
result  so  long  as  you  may  be  persuaded  that 
under  the  private  ownership  of  the  social 
means  of  production  your  own  and  your 
employers'  interests  are  identical.  In  a 
collectivist  society  your  interests  would 
indeed  be  the  same  as  those  of  other  men; 

[201] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

and  it  is  this  ideal  of  an  ultimate  identity 
of  all  men's  interests  that  impels  your 
clearer-sighted  brothers  to  wage  warfare 
against  a  class.  The  Union  men  in  the 
Civil  War  waged  such  a  conflict:  they  were 
inspired  by  the  ideal  of  a  stronger  and 
fairer  union  in  the  future,  but  they  knew 
such  a  union  was  impossible  until  the 
powers  of  a  sectional  class  were  subdued. 
The  crying  of  "Peace!"  when  there  was 
no  peace  they  held  to  be  copperheadism; 
they  knew  that  acquiescence  in  peace  with- 
out victory  for  the  Union  side  meant  the 
continuance  of  intolerable  evils;  they  recog- 
nized a  present  duty  of  warfare  to  insure 
an  ultimate  unity. 

Their  memorable  struggle  was  a  political 
warfare;  this  is  an  economic  and  a  social 
warfare.  So  long  as  you  can  be  affected 
by  the  cry  of  "Peace!"  the  contest  proceeds 
haltingly  and  confusedly;  just  so  long  your 
employer  and  his  fellow-employers  will 
arrange  among  themselves,  directly  or  in- 
directly, the  conditions  under  which  you 
work  and  live.  They  do  not,  as  you  know, 
[202] 


JOHN   SMITH,  WORKINGMAN 

want  the  same  things  that  you  do.  They 
want  to  pay  low  wages,  and  you  want  to 
receive  high  wages.  They  want  you  to 
work  long  hours,  and  you  want  to  work 
short  hours.  The  time  you  want  to  your- 
selves for  leisure  or  amusement  or  culture 
they  want  you  to  spend  in  producing  more 
goods  for  them.  They  want  you  to  com- 
pete against  one  another  for  jobs,  and  you 
want  to  agree  among  yourselves  about  jobs 
and  wages  and  to  bargain  collectively.  They 
want  a  large  share  of  what  you  produce, 
and  you  want  the  full  value  of  your  product. 
You  realize  all  this  as  between  yourself  and 
your  immediate  employer,  but  you  do  not 
realize  it  as  between  all  employers  and  all 
workmen.  You  do  not  realize  that  if  you 
and  your  fellow-workers  were  so  minded, 
you  might  vastly  better  your  lot.  You  are 
numerous  enough.  But  you  lack  that  sense 
of  oneness  of  interest  with  all  workers  as 
against  all  employers  which  would  impel 
you  to  unite  with  your  fellows  to  bring  about 
a  social  change. 

Yet  that  social  change  is  coming,  and 

[203] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

coming  through  you  and  your  fellows. 
You  cannot  forever  hesitate  and  hold  back. 
You  cannot  forever  accept  the  plausible 
arguments  of  those  who  would  keep  you 
divided.  Nor  can  you,  as  your  conscious- 
ness awakens  to  a  sense  of  what  might  be 
on  this  planet,  remain  satisfied  with  the 
mean  lot  and  the  narrow  horizon  of  the 
average  worker's  life.  Neither  can  you 
fail  to  see,  as  the  contest  between  capital 
and  labor  becomes  more  pronounced,  and 
as  its  issues  are  carried  into  legislatures  and 
the  courts,  that  it  is  capital's  control  of 
governmental  powers  which  ultimately  de- 
feats you.  So  seeing,  you  cannot  fail  to 
act;  you  cannot  fail  to  strive  in  union  with 
your  fellows  for  the  conquest  of  the  political 
powers.  You  may  delight  in  the  plausible 
arguments  of  the  retainers;  you  may  even 
wish  always  to  be  so  pleasantly  deluded. 
But  forces  mightier  than  your  wish  make 
for  your  liberation.  Association  in  toil 
at  like  tasks;  a  growing  realization  of  the 
impossibility  of  "rising  to  another  sphere"; 
a    frank    acceptance    of    a    working-class 

[2041 


JOHN   SMITH,  WORKINGMAN 

career;  daily  training  in  mutual  helpfulness 
and  mutual  sacrifice,  breed  in  you  and 
your  fellows  the  sense  of  a  oneness  of  interest 
among  all  workers  and  a  collectivist  ideal 
of  life.  Against  your  will  you  are  led  to 
Socialism,  as  millions  of  your  fellows  have 
been  led.  You  take  your  place  in  the 
ranks  and  become  one  in  the  great  army 
of  progress. 

What  matters  it  that  in  the  Socialist 
movement  you  see  grave  faults  ?  Is  your 
own  union  free  from  them?  Has  not  each 
movement — each  organization  of  men — 
faults  peculiar  to  itself?  If  an  ideal  and  a 
purpose  too  fiercely  held  produce  suspicion 
and  hatred  and  fanaticism — those  sur- 
vivals of  primitive  man — does  not  a  vague 
ideal  and  an  indefinite  aim  produce  sloth 
and  cowardice  and  weakness?  But  were 
the  faults  of  the  Socialist  movement  many 
times  greater  than  they  are,  the  remedy 
is  yet  with  you.  For  it  is  your  movement; 
it  has  no  interests  other  than  yours;  it  asks 
your  co-operation,  and  you  may  make  it 
what  you  will.  It  has,  of  course,  its  definite 
f  2051 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

foundation  principles,  and  you  cannot 
wrench  it  from  these;  it  will  not  permit 
itself  to  be  warped  from  its  revolutionary 
purpose  of  transforming  a  fratricidal  so- 
ciety of  warring  states  and  classes  into  an 
international  ^fellowship.  And  unless  you 
accept  these  principles  and  this  purpose 
and  until  you  have  given  over  your  sub- 
servience to  the  men  who  mislead  you, 
you  have  no  place  within  its  ranks  and  no 
power  to  affect  it.  But  within  these  bounds 
you  can  make  it  your  medium  for  winning 
a  world.  Divided  among  yourselves,  and 
fighting  a  few  desultory  skirmishes  with 
the  antiquated  weapons  of  the  strike  and 
the  boycott,  you  are  defeated  and  pressed 
back.  United,  disciplined  and  equipped, 
and  made  conscious  of  your  oneness  of  inter- 
est with  all  other  workers,  you  may  move 
forward  to  victory. 


[206 


CHAPTER  VI 

TO   THE   SKEPTICS   AND    DOUBTERS 

You  doubt  Socialism,  and  you  reject  it. 
Though  you  recognize  the  monstrous  evils 
of  the  present  system,  and  though  you  wish 
for  a  fairer  life  than  this,  you  do  not  believe 
that  Socialism  points  the  way.  Sometimes 
you  would  like  to  believe  so,  but  cannot; 
and  at  other  times  you  do  not  even  want  to 
believe  so.  Many  objections  come  to  your 
mind.  How  could  Socialism  do  this  thing  ? 
and,  How  could  it  prevent  that  thing? 
you  ask.  You  cast  up  quickly,  and  you 
reply,  It  could  neither  do  the  one  thing 
nor  prevent  the  other.  And  so  for  the 
moment,  until  the  "obstinate  questionings" 
come  to  you  again,  you  conclude,  No, 
Socialism  is  impossible. 

You  hear  from  preacher  and  teacher  and 
editor  the  stock  arguments;  and  their  in- 

[207] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

fluence,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  lies 
heavily  upon  you.  True,  you  are  not 
greatly  impressed  by  the  stupid  assertion 
that  Socialism  means  "dividing  up";  nor 
unless  you  are  easily  gullible  does  the 
"  menace-to-the-f  amily "  phrase  seriously 
bother  you.  You  see,  if  you  have  good 
eyes,  more  menace  to  the  family  under  the 
present  system  than  you  can  well  imagine 
under  any  other.  The  "tyrannous-bureau- 
cracy" phrase  no  doubt  to  some  extent 
awakens  your  apprehension;  but  even  this 
you  learn  to  discount.  For  in  the  first 
place,  you  are  not  unacquainted  with 
"tyrannous  bureaucracy"  under  our  present 
system;  and  in  the  second  place  both  you 
and  all  other  men  except  anarchists  and 
magnates,  if  only  you  have  some  aspiration 
toward  social  justice,  would  be  willing 
to  risk  a  certain  measure  of  bureaucratic 
tyranny  if  it  promised  an  amelioration  of 
want  and  suffering. 

But  other  questions  recur.  How  against 
such  stupendous  forces  can  Socialism  pos- 
sibly win?  and,  How,  even  if  it  could  win, 

[208] 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

could  it  possibly  work?  you  ask.  What 
incentive  would  men  have  for  exertion? 
How  could  useful  initiative  be  expected  of 
them?  What  would  become  of  liberty? 
You  take  up  Schaeffle's  Impossibility  of 
Social  Democracy,  and  you  repeat  after 
him  still  other  objections.  How  can  a 
democracy  effect  collective  production? 
How  can  Socialism  unite  all  branches  of 
industry  with  uniform  labor  time?  How 
can  it  increase  the  net  result  of  production  ? 
How  can  it  apportion  recompense — either, 
on  the  one  hand,  according  to  the  exact 
value  of  one's  product,  or  on  the  other  hand, 
according  to  one's  needs  ?  How  can  it  end 
the  exploitation  of  labor  power?  How  can 
it  abolish  the  wage-system  and  private 
service  ? 

No,  you  say,  Socialism  is  impossible.  It 
cannot  establish  itself,  and  even  if  it  could 
the  problems  which  it  promises  so  readily 
to  solve  are  in  the  main  unsolvable.  And 
so  let  us  eternally  patch  and  mend  the  thing 
we  have,  confident  that  some  improvement 
will  come,  rather  than  run  the  risk  of  some- 

14  [209] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

thing  new  and  strange.  No  more  Utopias! 
No  more  millennial  anticipations!  It  is  a 
poor  world,  and  we  must  make  the  best  of  it. 

Yet  though  your  judgment  seems  settled, 
it  is  not  wholly  futile  to  seek  speech  with 
you.  You  may  consciously  reject  all  we 
offer;  and  yet  some  single  phrase  of  it 
may  linger  sub-consciously,  to  sprout  in 
aftertime  as  the  seed  of  new  interpretations; 
and  these  new  interpretations  may  lead  to 
altered  convictions.  Often  the  single  word, 
though  carelessly  put  forth,  acts  as  a  switch- 
lever  on  the  train  of  thought  and  carries 
it  along  new  courses  to  new  goals.  This 
great  living,  breathing,  complex  thing  called 
Socialism  has  its  myriad  aspects  and  its 
myriad  points  of  approach.  Perhaps  even 
now  some  hitherto  unapprehended  phase 
of  it  may  arrest  your  attention  and  dis- 
quiet your  certainty.  But  whether  it  does 
or  not,  we  cannot  forbear  to  speak  our 
faith  in  the  face  of  skepticism. 

First,  let  it  be  said  that  we  Socialists, 
save  for  some  few  sanguine  and  over-imag- 
inative souls  in  the  ranks,  have  no  Utopia, 
[210] 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

no  glorified  plan  or  process,  no  Atlantis  or 
City  of  the  Sun.  Instead,  we  have  an  inter- 
pretation of  the  present  and  the  past,  and 
a  theory,  based  upon  that  interpretation, 
of  the  future.  We  are  concerned  to  know 
that  certain  things  have  been,  that  certain 
other  things  now  are,  and  that  according  to 
our  understanding  of  the  rules  of  sequence 
certain  other  things  very  probably  will  be. 
We  see,  or  think  we  see,  very  plainly  at  this 
time,  certain  presages  of  a  collectivist  social 
order.  We  see  everywhere  an  irresistible 
movement  toward  the  concentration  of  all 
those  industries  which  produce  general 
commodities.  It  does  not  matter  that  cer- 
tain small  industries,  producing  highly  spe- 
cialized commodities,  increase  somewhat  in 
number.  Those  industries  which  supply 
the  common  needs,  and  even  many  o£  the 
uncommon  needs  of  mankind,  are  rapidly 
being  welded  together.  The  last  census 
bulletin  of  manufactures  (1905)  shows  that 
out  of  216,000  factories  in  the  United  States, 
1,899,  or  considerably  less  than  one  per 
cent.,  produce  38  per  cent,  of  the  value  of 
[m] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

the  manufactured  product.  Against  such 
a  fact  as  this,  the  increase  in  number  of 
certain  petty  industries  has  relatively  no 
importance.  We  thus  say  that  production 
becomes  all  the  time  more  and  more  social, 
and  therefore  that  it  comes  to  be  in  greater 
and  greater  disharmony  with  the  mode  of 
ownership,  which  is  individual  and  con- 
fined to  relatively  but  a  small  part  of  the 
population. 

Along  with  this  increase  of  social  produc- 
tion, comes  necessarily  an  increasing  organ- 
ization of  the  workers.  The  socialization 
of  production  necessarily  socializes  the  men 
who  do  the  work.  Everything  which  makes 
more  efficient  and  rapid  the  means  of  com- 
munication and  transportation  also  brings 
the  workers  more  closely  together,  and 
makes  for  a  greater  homogeneity  of  their 
instincts  and  their  purposes.  Thus  with  the 
steady  growth  of  this  process  the  workers' 
consciousness  of  a  community  of  interest 
becomes  clearer  and  clearer  to  them.  Now 
the  workers  have  always  felt  the  burdens 
and  the  oppressions  of  their  lot;  also  they 

[212] 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

have  always  felt  the  weakness  of  their  posi- 
tion. But  with  this  growth  of  the  sense  of 
community  of  interest,  with  their  increasing 
exercise  of  collective  action  in  trade  disputes 
and  legislative  matters,  they  come  all  the 
time  to  a  fuller  sense  of  their  powers.  First 
their  instincts,  later  their  convictions,  develop 
in  them  the  ideal  of  a  collective  organization 
of  society,  in  which  the  instruments  of  pro- 
duction, instead  of  being  owned  by  a  few 
men,  and  used  for  the  purposes  of  making 
profit,  shall  be  collective  property,  owned 
by  society  as  a  whole,  and  operated  for  the 
purpose  of  securing  an  equitable  distribu- 
tion. This  growing  class  consciousness  of  the 
workers,  joined  with  its  corollary,  an  awak- 
ening sense  of  their  powers,  promises,  we 
say,  a  reorganization  of  society. 

This  is  not  all.  Capitalism  fails  to  render 
a  satisfactory  account  of  its  stewardship. 
It  has  no  concern  and  it  makes  no  provision 
for  the  well-being  of  the  workers.  To  the 
feudal  baron,  the  serf  was  generally  a  thing 
of  intrinsic  value,  and  it  was  to  the  interests 
of  the  baron  to  see  that  his  serf  had  food 

[213] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

and  comfort.  To  the  slave-holder,  too,  the 
slave  was  a  thing  of  intrinsic  value,  and  it 
was  to  the  interests  of  the  slave-holder  that 
the  slave  should  be  kept  in  a  state  of  physical 
efficiency.  But  to  the  modern  capitalist  the 
worker  is  valuable  only  when  he  is  producing 
profits.  The  capitalist  recognizes  no  obli- 
gation whatsoever  to  keep  the  worker  in 
comfort.  Under  capitalism  there  are  al- 
ways, and  must  necessarily  be,  numbers  of 
idle  workmen,  and  should  one  die  or  be 
maimed  or  fall  sick,  there  is  always  another 
to  take  his  place.  Divorced  from  the  tools 
of  production,  the  worker  in  order  to  make 
a  living  must  compete  with  his  fellows  for 
the  privilege  of  using  the  tools  owned  by 
other  men.  Under  this  competition,  his 
wages,  unless  artificially  bettered  by  the 
action  of  his  union,  or  in  certain  cases  by 
the  action  of  the  state,  tend  generally  to 
keep  to  a  line  just  about  that  of  the  cost  of 
maintenance.  Year  by  year  the  worker 
becomes  more  conscious  of  these  facts  and 
less  acquiescent  in  the  continuance  of  them, 
and  so  year  by  year  his  threat  against  the 

[214] 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

existence  of  capitalism  becomes  more  men- 
acing. 

Nor  is  the  wage-worker  the  only  member 
of  modern  society  who  threatens  the  exist- 
ence of  capitalism.  The  so-called  "middle 
class,"  composed  of  those  merchants  and 
manufacturers  who  own  small  establish- 
ments, suffer  a  constantly  increasing  press- 
ure through  the  power  of  the  big  concerns. 
In  a  sense,  they  read  the  handwriting  on  the 
wall.  They  know  that  something  is  the  matter 
with  them,  though  they  do  not  know  exactly 
what,  and  they  are  up  in  arms  against  those 
they  feel  are  injuring  them.  Most  of  the 
political  turmoil  of  the  present  time  is  due 
to  the  revolt  of  the  "middle  class"  against 
the  magnates.  All  of  the  attempts  at 
freight-rate  regulation,  reduction  of  passen- 
ger rates,  the  movement  for  municipal 
ownership  and  like  movements,  are  expres- 
sions of  this  "middle-class"  revolt  rather 
than  of  a  revolt  of  the  workers.  The 
"middle-class"  men  are  of  course  capitalists 
and  presumably  interested  in  the  mainte- 
nance of  capitalism;  and  yet  their  constant 

[215] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

assaults  on  the  system  as  it  prevails  to-day 
can  hardly  do  else  than  weaken  its  position. 

Then,  too,  the  state,  urged  on  by  the 
demands  of  proletarian  and  farmer  and 
"middle-class"  man,  is  constantly  assuming 
new  functions  and  modifying  and  restricting 
the  economic  methods  of  individuals.  It 
does  not,  as  a  rule,  do  these  things  sponta- 
neously; it  does  them  long  after  their  need 
has  been  generally  felt,  and  as  a  result  of  a 
pressure  that  cannot  be  withstood.  The 
state  is  thus  constantly,  though  haltingly, 
adapting  itself  to  the  changes  going  on  in 
the  world  of  industry. 

In  all  these  phenomena  Socialists  see 
presages  of  the  breakdown  of  the  capitalist 
regime.  It  has  served  its  purpose,  and  it 
must  fall,  as  feudalism  fell  and  as  slavery 
fell.  In  some  way,  possibly  by  slow  and 
hardly  perceptible  changes,  possibly  by  a 
cataclysm,  the  existing  order  will  pass  to  its 
death  and  a  new  order  will  begin.  The  order 
which  will  emerge  will  be  Socialism.  It  will 
be  Socialism  because  of  these  tendencies, 
and  because  there  will  be  no  alternative. 

[216] 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

To  Socialists,  therefore,  the  question, 
How  against  such  stupendous  forces  can 
Socialism  possibly  win?  seems  readily  an- 
swerable with  the  statement  that  Socialism 
is  winning  all  the  time.  It  is  winning  in  at 
least  four  ways :  by  the  increasing  socializa- 
tion of  production  and  distribution;  by  the 
increasing  exercise  on  the  part  of  the  state 
and  its  subordinate  branches  of  new  func- 
tions; by  the  growth  of  economic  organiza- 
tions of  labor,  and  by  the  growth  of  the 
political  movement  which  has  for  its  aim 
the  co-operative  commonwealth. 

The  emergent  order,  we  say,  will  thus  be 
Socialism.  Socialism  is  the  collective  owner- 
ship and  democratic  management  of  the  social 
means  of  production  for  the  common  good. 
Not  all  the  means ;  for  it  is  entirely  prob- 
able that  many  of  the  smaller  industries 
may  justly,  and  with  due  regard  for  social 
efficiency,  be  left  in  private  hands.  Socialism 
seeks  the  perfecting  of  the  industrial  plant 
that  the  product  may  be  vastly  increased; 
and  it  further  seeks  to  distribute  that  prod- 
uct equitably  among  all  the  units  that  have 

[217] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

contributed  in  the  work.  It  postulates  an 
industrial  system  in  which  there  is  neither 
robbed  nor  robber  as  a  necessary  basis  to 
further  intellectual  and  moral  progress;  for 
though  Nature  may  sporadically  develop 
intelligence  and  morality  under  a  vicious 
industrial  order,  they  are  not,  to  use  a  figure 
from  biology,  her  normal  growths  in  such 
environment, but  her  accidents  and"  sports." 
Socialism  seeks,  not  individual  efficiency,  the 
sharpening  of  the  claws  and  beak  for  war- 
fare, but  social  efficiency.  It  does  not  mean 
the  abolition  of  private  property,  nor  does  it 
mean  absolute  state  ownership,  or  absolute 
parity  of  pay,  or  the  mandatory  allotment  of 
tasks,  or  the  creation  of  a  tyrannous  bureau- 
cracy, or  the  death  of  freedom,  or  the  crush- 
ing of  incentive,  or  the  disruption  of  the 
family.  It  means  an  extension,  thoroughgo- 
ing and  revolutionary,  of  social  control  over 
the  economic  life  of  the  race.  It  means  de- 
mocracy applied  to  the  methods  of  producing 
goods  and  of  apportioning  rewards.  It 
means  industrial  democracy  not  as  an  end, 
but  as  a  basis  of  racial  progress. 

[218] 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

All  very  plausible  and  optimistic,  you 
say,  but  how  will  it  work?  We  have  no 
biograph  of  the  Socialist  state,  and  we  do 
not  know  how  it  will  work.  Nor  did  George 
Washington  or  Thomas  Jefferson  know  how 
democracy  would  work  in  the  colonies 
when  they  carried  on  their  contest  against 
Great  Britain.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
worked  for  a  time  very  badly.  And  so 
for  a  time  may  Socialism  work  very  badly. 
But  it  is  to  be  observed  that  mankind,  when 
it  passes  over  from  monarchy  to  democracy 
and  finds  the  new  scheme  of  things  running 
awkwardly,  instead  of  reverting  to  monarchy 
sets  itself  the  task  of  perfecting  its  mechan- 
ism. We  may  expect  the  future  society 
to  do  a  like  thing.  We  may  expect  that 
after  having  toiled  so  long  and  sacrificed  so 
much  in  its  struggle  for  a  new  order,  man- 
kind will  suffer  any  momentary  ills  rather 
than  return  to  the  old.  Freed  from  the 
shackles  that  now  hamper  its  proper  growth, 
the  progress  of  society  may  be  expected 
to  consist  largely  in  constant  attempts  at 
adjustment.     That    process    has    no    con- 

[219] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

ceivable  end.  The  social  revolution  will 
but  furnish  the  working  conditions  and  the 
principle  of  action;  under  those  conditions 
and  in  the  light  of  that  principle  the  process 
can  be  carried  on  eternally. 

But  must  there  not  then  be  a  powerful 
machine  to  guide  and  control  this  work? 
Very  likely  there  must,  and  that  machine 
is  the  state.  To  anarchists,  "philosophical 
individualists"  and  to  certain  Socialists  of 
the  "industrial"  type,  the  thought  is  re- 
volting; even  to  the  great  magnates  the 
thought  of  a  state  with  other  powers  than 
those  of  preserving  order  and  of  enforcing 
contracts  is  disquieting.  But  the  state  is, 
in  spite  of  theories.  It  is  an  evolution  from 
old  time,  and  it  waxes  stronger  through  all 
the  changes  in  political  forms.  To  all  who 
propose  the  weakening  or  elimination  of 
the  state,  there  is  this  reply:  the  state  is 
eternal,  and  cannot  be  put  aside.  Like 
Wordsworth's  River  Duddon, 

"  The  form  remains,  the  function  never  dies." 

It  exists  out  of  the  necessity  of  things,  and 
[  220  ] 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

the  more  efficient  and  highly  organized  the 
industrial  system  becomes,  the  greater  must 
be  the  power  and  efficiency  of  the  state. 

But  when  we  speak  of  state  and  govern- 
ment under  Socialism,  we  mean  a  vastly 
different  entity  from  the  thing  which  is 
called  the  state  to-day.  The  present-day 
state,  while  professing  to  be  the  organ  of 
all  society,  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  an  organ 
— not  solely,  but  largely — of  the  ruling 
class;  and  what  the  state  determines  upon 
doing,  and  what  it  decides  to  be  justice, 
are  in  large  part  but  reflexes  of  the  needs 
and  standards  of  the  class  of  capitalist 
owners,  small  or  large.  Under  Socialism 
the  state  would  be  the  embodiment  of  the 
needs  and  aims  of  all  society — of  a  society 
without  antagonistic  classes.  We  may  look 
to  see  a  Socialist  state  as  the  father  of  num- 
berless institutions  of  social  welfare,  the  di- 
rector of  labor — to  a  large  extent  the  guide 
in  production  and  the  determiner  of  what 
shall  be  produced  and  how.  The  state 
will  determine  the  range  and  volume  of 
the  most  needful  commodities  to  be  pro- 

[221] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

duced.  The  workers  will  be  regimented, 
that  is,  organized;  but  the  regimentation 
will  be  by  their  own  will  and  for  their  own 
purposes.  This  regimentation,  which  is  so 
frightful  a  bugbear  to  the  persons  who 
clamor  for  so-called  social  freedom,  will 
be  seen  to  lose  half  its  terrors  when  it  is 
recognized  how  and  to  what  end  it  is  made. 
It  will  bear  small  likeness  to  the  present 
regimentation  of  the  anthracite  coal  miners 
in  Pennsylvania,  or  to  that  of  the  factory 
workers  in  Massachusetts  or  Alabama — 
social  phenomena  to  which  the  defenders 
of  the  present  regime  are  so  wilfully  blind. 
Nor  will  it  bear  any  resemblance  to  the 
regimentation  which  Bellamy  pictures.  It 
will  be  the  regimentation  of  volunteers  as 
against  the  present  regimentation  of  con- 
scripts. 

Under  this  system  we  may  expect  to  see 
administrative  bodies,  by  a  statistical  study 
of  supply  and  demand,  determining  what 
is  wanted,  and  by  gradations  in  the  hours 
of  toil  drawing  bodies  of  free  workers  now 
to  this  occupation  and  now  to  that,  and  by 

[222] 


SKEPTICS  AND   DOUBTERS 

the  same  means  withdrawing  them  from 
occupations  that  are  glutted  with  help.  No 
doubt  this  expectation  argues  a  mobility 
and  a  versatility  of  labor  quite  unknown 
to-day.  And  yet  even  to-day  the  time  lost 
by  the  workers  in  forced  unemployment 
could  be  utilized,  were  capitalism  so  minded, 
in  training  an  army  skilled  to  work  in  varied 
industries.  Under  a  system  wherein  the 
general  mobility  of  labor  will  be  recognized 
as  necessary,  there  will  be  no  difficulty 
in  providing  it.  We  may  also  expect  to  see 
the  state  return  to  the  worker  an  equitable, 
though  not  necessarily  an  equal,  share  of 
the  value  of  the  product.  The  dividend 
to  labor  is  something  most  likely  to  be 
determined  by  general  administrative  bodies. 
To  suppose  an  economic  body  rather  than 
a  political  body  as  the  unit  of  power  is  to 
suppose  anarchy,  and  a  very  unjust  and 
inequitable  anarchy  at  that.  It  would  mean 
a  continuation  of  the  competitive  struggle 
for  the  means  of  life,  more  fierce  and  deadly 
and  wasteful  than  now,  because  waged 
among  groups  instead  of  among  individuals. 

[223] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

The  arbitrament  of  justice  in  all  its  forms 
must  lie  with  the  power  representing  all 
society  and  not  some  fraction  of  it,  and  that 
power  will  be  political. 

We  look,  then,  to  a  more  concentrated 
form  of  production,  to  the  elimination  of 
the  waste  of  competitive  effort,  to  an  ex- 
tension of  social  service,  and  we  look  to 
society  in  its  organized  form,  the  state,  as 
the  medium  by  which  all  this  would  be 
brought  about.  Government,  under  Social- 
ism, would  thus  be  largely  the  administration 
of  the  organs  of  social  welfare  and  of  the 
labor  forces  of  the  nation.  The  vast  and 
complex  structure  of  institutional  machinery 
built  up  for  the  defense  of  property  and  the 
punishment  of  the  violators  of  property 
rights,  would  fade  "like  an  unsubstantial 
pageant." 

But  how,  you  ask  with  Schaeffle,  could 
a  democracy  effect  collective  production? 
Autocracies  might  do  so,  as  indeed  Peru, 
under  the  Incas,  so  effectually  did.  But 
how  can  90,000,000  beings  of  differing 
wills  so  unify  their  efforts?     Well,  so  far 

r  224 1 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

as  history  is  concerned,  there  is  no  decisive 
evidence  for  or  against  the  assumption. 
Certainly  no  democracy  has  yet  attempted 
a  systematized  operation  of  its  entire  in- 
dustrial plant.  But  what  evidence  we  have 
of  democratic  assumption  of  specific  enter- 
prises tends  to  the  Socialist  conclusion. 
And  after  all,  Schaeffle's  objection  is  purely 
theoretical.  It  is  an  instance  of  what  Lord 
Bacon  would  call  the  "humor  of  a  scholar." 
His  work,  it  should  be  remembered,  was 
written  twenty-six  years  ago,  before  any 
of  the  striking  modern  experiments  in  the 
collective  operation  of  industries  had  been 
made.  Everywhere  democracy  is  reaching 
out  and  assuming  an  increased  control  of 
industry.  Doubtless  the  movement  is  at- 
tended with  many  mistakes  and  some  fail- 
ures. But  the  significant  thing  is,  that 
democracy  is  everywhere  so  satisfied  with 
its  present  advances  that  the  movement, 
far  from  halting  or  retreating,  steadily  pro- 
gresses. The  New  Zealand  and  Australian 
democracies  successfully  operate  many  in- 
dustrial   enterprises;  and    a    multitude    of 

15  [  225  ] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

those  petty  democracies,  the  municipalities, 
in  all  countries,  are  steadily  taking  over 
new  activities.  This  very  democracy — al- 
beit an  exceedingly  plutocratic  one — of  the 
United  States  of  America  is  now  operating 
in  its  navy  yards,  in  the  reclamation  service 
and  in  the  Canal  Zone,  enterprises  which 
Schaeffle  would  have  denied  it  the  possibility 
of  conducting.  It  builds  ships,  it  builds  and 
operates  mills  for  the  manufacture  of  con- 
crete, and  in  Panama  it  digs  a  gigantic 
canal,  it  runs  a  railroad  and  a  steamship 
line  and  it  efficiently  furnishes  a  community 
of  more  than  50,000  souls  with  almost 
every  needful  comfort.  The  denial  of  the 
power  of  democracies  to  manage  their 
economic  affairs  is  merely  a  survival  from 
a  past  age  of  a  prejudice  that  denied  to 
democracies  the  capacity  to  manage  their 
political  affairs. 

Well,  then,  assuming  for  the  time  dem- 
ocracies to  be  thus  capable,  there  is  the 
unsolvable  problem  of  recompense.  How 
can  a  community  endure  if  the  basis  of 
recompense  is  merely  need ;  and  if  the  basis 

[  226  ] 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

is  service,  how  can  recompense  be  rightly 
apportioned,  and  what  shall  be  done  with 
the  needy?  We  do  not  have  to  solve  the 
problem  in  theory,  for  it  is  one  of  those 
problems  that  will  be  adjusted  by  the 
pressure  of  necessity,  with  small  regard  for 
theories.  Still,  there  are  two  radically  dif- 
fering ideals  regarding  recompense  widely 
held;  and  it  may  be  well  to  consider  them. 
One  is  the  ideal  of  rewards  on  the  basis  of 
needs,  and  one  is  the  ideal  of  rewards  based 
on  service.  The  former  may  be  called  a 
Communist  ideal,  the  latter  an  Individual- 
ist-Socialist ideal.  It  is  not  to  be  denied 
that  each  ideal,  and  furthermore,  every 
possible  gradation  between  these  two  ex- 
tremes, are  held  by  different  men  who  call 
themselves,  and  rightly,  Socialists.  But 
there  is,  after  all,  a  norm  of  these  varying 
beliefs  or  ideals.  The  opinion  may  be 
hazarded  that  most  Socialists  all  over  the 
world  believe  that  need  as  a  sole  basis  of 
rewards  is  a  standard  utterly  impracticable 
among  men  as  we  now  know  them.  So  long 
has  mankind  been  prompted  to  its  tasks 

[227] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

by  the  desire  for  individual  gain  that  this 
motive  is  for  the  time  ingrained;  and  a 
division  of  products  proportioned  to  needs 
without  reference  to  service  would  be  re- 
jected by  every  community  on  the  planet. 

But  this  ideal,  though  acknowledged  to 
be  impracticable  of  fulfillment  in  the  near 
future,  is  one  which  is  generally  held  to  be 
possible  of  ultimate  fulfillment.  Socialists 
hold,  then,  that  the  matter  of  rewards  shall 
be  determined  by  the  class  which  has  most 
right  to  a  voice  in  the  matter — the  produc- 
ing class — and  that  the  basis  shall  be  that 
which  does  most  to  insure  the  efficiency 
and  well-being  of  society.  Mankind  has 
been  trained  for  countless  generations  to 
hope  for  a  reward  proportioned  to  service. 
It  has  never  got  a  reward  so  proportioned, 
as  all  know,  and  it  never  will  get  it  under 
competitive  industry.  But  this  hope  has 
been  implanted  in  it,  and  this  standard, 
though  everywhere  violated,  is  for  the  time 
fixed  in  the  human  consciousness.  And  so 
this  standard  will  most  likely  be  adopted 
under  Socialism.     But  it  is  one  which  must 

[228] 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

suffer  a  constant  and  increasing  modification 
by  that  other  standard  of  need.  With  what 
face  can  any  upholder  of  the  present  regime 
criticise  the  growing  recognition  of  this 
standard?  It  is  one  which  every  humane 
man  adopts  in  his  own  family;  and  it  is 
one  to  which  society  itself  pays  greater 
heed  year  by  year.  The  modern  state, 
capitalistic  though  it  is,  in  many  ways 
foreshadows  the  state  which  is  to  follow  it. 
Our  asylums  for  the  blind,  the  deaf  and 
the  dumb,  and  for  defectives  of  various 
kinds;  our  hospitals,  our  schools  even,  are 
all  instances  of  a  distribution  of  benefits 
based  solely  upon  needs,  and  they  are  all 
of  them  anticipations  of  a  state  in  which 
this  principle  will  be  carried  to  degrees 
unapprehended  to-day. 

But  there  is  more  to  this  pay  problem, 
you  say;  will  there  be  uniform  labor  time 
and  equal  recompense,  hour  for  hour? 
Who  can  say?  And  yet  the  answer  may 
be  made  that  parity  of  pay  is  no  necessary 
part  of  Socialist  doctrine.  It  would  seem 
quite  likely  that  a  Socialist  society  would 

[229] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

pay  unequally  for  different  kinds  of  work. 
Inequality  of  recompense  is  another  of  those 
customs  to  which  mankind  has  become 
habituated  through  generations  of  expe- 
rience, and  one  which  will  take  years  to 
outgrow.  But  if  it  is  asked  how  unequal 
these  rewards  are  to  be,  one  can  say  with 
confidence  that  they  will  show  no  such 
disparity  as  is  shown  in  the  commercial 
world  to-day;  and  with  almost  equal  con- 
fidence that  they  will  not  show  even  the 
moderate  disparities  which  are  found  in  the 
departments  at  Washington,  wherein  some 
dim  approaches  to  an  ethical  standard  are 
made,  and  where  the  range  of  recompense 
between  that  for  a  clerk  and  that  for  a 
cabinet  minister  is  not  more  than  from  1  to 
7,  or  from  $1,200  to  $8,000.  Money  re- 
wards are  not  the  only  rewards  for  which 
men  strive,  even  under  a  regime  wherein 
the  size  of  this  reward  is  exalted  into  a 
standard  of  social  worth. 

But,  you  say,  no  men  of  ability  will  work 
for  mean  pay;  and  if  Socialism  wants  to 
bring  out  the  best  talents  of  inventor,  ad- 

[230] 


SKEPTICS  AND   DOUBTERS 

ministrator  and  even  laborer,  material  re- 
wards must  be  proportional,  and  the  recom- 
pense of  the  highest  ability  must  be  vastly 
greater  than  that  of  common  labor.  Then, 
too,  you  say,  this  brings  up  another  problem. 
For  this  proportionate  remuneration  is 
totally  incompatible  with  democratic  equal- 
ity. With  this  proportionate  reward,  there- 
fore, we  cannot  have  equality,  and  without 
it  we  cannot  have  adequate  production. 

Not  so  fast  and  sweeping,  Mr.  Doubter. 
Your  first  alternative  is  an  error.  There 
is  no  necessary  inconsistency  between  mod- 
erate inequality  of  possessions  and  equality 
of  social  and  political  rights  and  status. 
Any  one  familiar  with  life  in  those  new  com- 
munities wherein  differences  of  economic 
function,  and  consequently  classes,  have  so 
far  not  arisen,  is  aware  of  this  truth.  The 
settlers  of  the  Middle  and  the  Far  West 
were  men  and  women  of  very  great  degree 
of  difference  in  possessions.  Many  went 
West  with  sufficient  means  to  acquire  large 
holdings  of  land,  while  others  were  virtually 
penniless.     Yet   for   a   long  time   in   these 

[231] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

communities  social  equality  was  an  assured 
fact.  To  a  very  considerable  extent  it  is 
even  yet  so.  Only  after  economic  processes 
had  settled  down,  and  differences  of  eco- 
nomic function  had  become  marked  and 
enduring — some  persons  becoming  large 
owners  of  the  means  of  production  and 
others  becoming  mere  sellers  of  labor  power 
— did  social  equality  begin  to  decline.  It 
is  certain — if  anything  can  be  certain — that 
in  a  social  republic  wherein  economic  classes 
have  been  abolished,  and  wherein  the  pres- 
ent stigma  attaching  to  the  performance  of 
manual  work  is  no  longer  known,  very 
considerable  differences  of  possession  may 
harmonize  with  perfect  social  equality.  So- 
cial inequalities  are  a  result,  not  so  much  of 
disparities  of  fortune,  as  of  disparities  of 
economic  function. 

Your  other  alternative  involves  the  ques- 
tion of  incentive.  Here  of  course  is  ground 
that  is  debatable,  and  that  will  always 
be  debated  until  an  overwhelming  mass 
of  proof  is  given  by  long  experimentation 
with  facts.     Men  will  not  give  their  best 

[232] 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

labors,  you  say,  unless  promised  a  material 
reward  proportioned  to  their  service.  And 
yet  it  is  certain  that  three-fifths  of  mankind 
to-day  are  constantly  toiling  with  no  rational 
ground  for  believing  that  they  will  ever 
be  so  rewarded.  But,  you  say,  with  Mal- 
lock,  these  are  the  common  mob,  who  are 
lashed  to  their  work  by  the  whip  of  neces- 
sity. It  is  the  intellectual  aristocracy,  the 
inventors,  the  managers,  the  administrators, 
the  men  who  plan  and  carry  forward  enter- 
prises of  great  pith  and  moment,  who  must 
be  rewarded  generously  in  order  to  bring 
out  what  is  best  in  them. 

Certainly  these  men  must  be  rewarded. 
So  should  all  other  men  be  rewarded  in  order 
to  bring  out  what  is  best  in  them.  And 
that  the  amount  of  this  reward  should 
be  determined  with  some  reference  to  the 
relative  amount  of  service  rendered,  may 
also  be  cheerfully  conceded.  But  what 
standard  of  reward-value  shall  be  used? 
Is  it  necessary  that  it  should  be  a  money 
standard  exclusively  ? 

History  and  descriptive  sociology  give  an 
r^33l 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

emphatic  denial  to  any  such  contention. 
In  all  societies,  in  all  ages,  men  seek  their 
rewards  according  to  the  current  standards 
of  valuation.  The  Indian  youth,  who  is 
forbidden  to  marry  or  to  sit  in  the  councils 
of  the  warriors  until  he  has  lifted  the  hair 
of  a  certain  number  of  victims,  takes  his 
reward  in  scalps.  His  best  powers  of  cun- 
ning and  strategy,  bravery  and  endurance 
are  brought  out  and  kept  employed  in  the 
tasks  which  promise  this  reward.  In  the 
age  of  chivalry  men  take  their  reward  in 
their  records  of  victories  in  tournaments 
or  on  the  field  of  battle.  In  ages  dominated 
by  regard  for  learning  or  the  arts  men  seek 
rewards  in  intellectual  or  artistic  achieve- 
ment; in  ages  dominated  by  religious  fer- 
vor men  take  their  rewards  in  a  conscious- 
ness of  exceptional  piety,  or  at  least  in  a 
reputation  for  it.  It  is  only  in  a  commercial 
age  that  men  insist  upon  a  proportional 
reward  in  money.  And  even  in  such  ages 
this  standard  is  by  no  means  unexceptional. 
In  this  very  time,  when  all  the  world  seems 
given  up  to  a  mad  scramble  for  material 

[234] 


SKEPTICS  AND   DOUBTERS 

gain,  the  best  men,  the  most  useful  men, 
give  their  lives  to  services  that  promise 
only  a  mean  and  scanty,  if  any,  material 
reward.  They  are  taking  their  larger  pay 
in  another  coin.  It  is  an  unimaginative 
criticism  of  the  Socialist  state  to  assert 
that  when  great  material  rewards  have 
been  abolished,  natural  ability  will  content 
itself  with  common  tasks,  refusing  to  exert 
itself  in  tasks  of  invention  and  direction. 
Nothing  is  so  false  to  history,  so  false  to 
human  nature.  Ability  always  seeks  to 
manifest  itself,  and  generally  it  asks  no 
other  reward  than  "going  wages."  The 
consciousness  of  achievement,  the  esteem 
of  one's  fellows,  the  pride  of  sharing  in 
leadership,  will  draw  from  the  men  of  ability 
a  quantity  and  character  of  performance 
which  even  the  hope  of  material  gain  cannot 
bring  forth  to-day. 

Well,  you  reply,  this  may  possibly  be 
true  for  the  exceptional  man,  but  it  is  cer- 
tainly not  true  for  the  average  man.  Noth- 
ing but  the  grind  of  personal  need  will  hold 
him  to  his  task.     Most  men  are  indolent  by 

[235] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

nature.  Socialism  is  the  lazy  man's  utopia 
— a  leafy  and  flowery  paradise  wherein  he 
may  lie  down  and  "take  the  count." 

Truly  a  whimsical  view  to  take  of  a  world 
of  such  momentous  energy,  in  the  face  of  the 
eternal  striving  and  achieving  of  myriads 
of  men!  And  a  yet  more  whimsical  view 
of  the  industrious  man's  ideal  of  a  common- 
sense  arrangement  of  his  economic  relations ! 
In  the  light  of  all  that  has  been  achieved  on 
this  planet  in  the  brief  period  of  man's  his- 
tory, are  we  not  rather  justified  in  assuming 
that  all  men  have  the  impulse  to  exertion  ? 
They  do,  indeed,  seek  to  avoid  disagreeable 
work.  They  seek  to  avoid  work  which  is 
socially  contemned — work  the  performance 
of  which  places  them  in  an  inferior  class. 
And  they  seek  to  avoid  dangerous  work 
and  monotonous  work  and  meanly  paid 
work — work  which  drains  them  of  health 
and  joy  for  no  adequate  return.  There  is 
no  sweated  seamstress  or  factory  spool- 
tender,  no  stoker,  or  miner  or  street-sweeper 
who  would  not  prefer  to  be  idle  rather  than 
to  work  at  his  or  her  daily  task.     And  yet 

[236] 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

probably  there  are  very  few  of  these  per- 
sons but  would  work  willingly  and  energeti- 
cally at  the  making  of  things  in  which  they 
could  enshrine  something  of  their  heart 
and  soul. 

They  have  not  now  the  opportunity. 
Only  the  more  fortunate  workers,  as  indus- 
try is  now  constituted,  are  enabled  to  do 
the  kind  of  work  which  they  most  wish  to 
do  or  are  best  capable  of  doing.  As  boys 
or  girls  we  are  started  in  certain  occupations, 
not  because  we  have  an  instinctive  inclina- 
tion toward  them,  but  because  opportunities 
therein  are  open.  The  "grind  of  personal 
need,"  far  from  impelling  us  to  do  the  best 
labor,  compels  us  to  do  the  kind  of  labor 
for  which  there  is  a  demand  and  which 
is  nearest  to  us.  No  one  with  an  instinct 
of  workmanship  cares  to  be  employed  in 
the  making  of  shoddy  clothing,  or  collapsible 
furniture,  or  imitation  food  or  Buddensiek 
buildings.  Yet  under  the  present  organiza- 
tion of  society  there  is  a  demand  for  these 
commodities,  and  men  must  work  upon 
them.     Look  over  a  list  of  common  occupa- 

T  237] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

tions,  and  note  how  many  of  them  are 
carried  on  in  dirt  or  filth,  note  in  how  many 
is  the  ever-present  danger  of  infection  or 
maiming  or  death,  how  many  are  crushingly 
monotonous,  how  many  are  wholly  wanting 
in  any  possibility  of  self-expression,  how 
many  are  meanly  paid  and  how  many 
are  socially  contemned.  Look  these  over 
and  consider  them,  and  you  will  find  a 
truer  cause  for  the  wish  to  escape  work 
than  in  native  indolence. 

We  may  reasonably  expect,  under  Social- 
ism, a  better  mechanism  for  fitting  the  work 
to  the  man  and  the  man  to  the  work.  We 
may  expect  freer  opportunities  for  the  work- 
er to  find  the  task  he  can  best  perform. 
Under  Socialism  each  unit  is  a  part  owner 
in  the  whole  industrial  plant  of  the  nation. 
We  can  hardly  suppose  that  under  such 
circumstances  there  will  be  any  production 
of  fraudulent  commodities,  for  people  do  not 
make  such  commodities  for  themselves.  We 
can  hardly  suppose  that  people  will  delib- 
erately set  themselves  to  dangerous  tasks 
when  those  tasks  can  be  made  safe,  or  to 

[238] 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

disagreeable  tasks  that  can  be  made  agree- 
able, or  to  monotonous  tasks  the  monotony 
of  which  can  be  relieved.  Nor  can  we  sup- 
pose that  in  a  society  where  all  are  useful 
workers,  a  social  stigma  will  attach  to  any 
kind  of  useful  work.  There  would  still 
be  disagreeable  tasks  to  do — that  is,  tasks 
disagreeable  in  themselves;  and  yet  men 
would  perform  them,  as  many  men  do 
many  such  tasks  to-day,  willingly  and 
proudly.  Who  more  than  the  physician  is 
called  upon  to  do  tasks  of  sometimes  re- 
volting disagreeableness  ?  But  honor  at- 
taches to  his  work,  and  goodly  recompense 
follows  it,  and  he  does  it  with  zealous  pride. 
The  task  disagreeable  in  itself  is  thus 
made,  if  not  always  agreeable,  at  least 
tolerable,  by  the  bonus  of  honor  or  pay. 
It  is  an  old  rule — older  than  Nineveh  or 
Karnak;  and  the  business  of  a  Socialist 
society  will  be  to  apply  it  to  all  men  and  to 
all  occupations  instead  of  to  a  few.  Nothing 
seems  theoretically  simpler  than  to  create, 
by  gradations  in  honor  and  worktime  and 
pay,  a  uniform  agreeability  or  tolerability  of 

[239] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

tasks ;  and  though  theories  sometimes  main- 
tain a  stubborn  nonconformist  attitude  in 
the  presence  of  practice,  this  one  may  stand 
as  sustained  by  every  application  so  far 
made  of  it.  The  agreeable  task  is  weighted ; 
the  disagreeable  task  lightened,  the  task 
at  which  no  one  will  work  at  a  wage  which 
society  can  afford  to  pay  will  cease  to  be 
done  or  be  done  by  machinery.  Even  to- 
day vast  categories  of  repulsive  tasks  would 
pass  over  to  the  domain  of  machinery  were 
it  not  that  capital  finds  more  profit  in  the 
exploitation  of  the  most  wretched  part  of 
the  population.  With  greater  freedom  of 
opportunity,  with  more  attractive  tasks, 
with  juster  recompense,  with  an  equal  inter- 
est on  the  part  of  every  one  in  the  sum  of 
production,  you  need  have  no  fear  that  men 
will  not  work. 

Nor  need  you  fear  that  the  basic  motive 
of  personal  need  will  be  removed.  It  will 
not.  He  that  can  work  and  will  not,  shall 
not  eat.  The  primary  motive  of  personal 
need  will  always  be  present.  But  there  is 
another  motive  which  usually  shares  with 

[240] 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

it  in  exertion,  and  would  always  do  so  under 
freer  conditions  of  labor.  That  is  the  joy 
of  achievement.  It  has  two  aspects — or 
rather  two  manifestations — the  one  of  im- 
mediate satisfaction  in  creating  something 
and  the  other  of  winning  the  regard  of  our 
fellows.  There  is  no  normal  being  who  does 
not — or  who  would  not,  under  reasonable 
conditions — take  pride  in  the  work  of  his 
head  or  hand.  Nor,  except  in  the  stress 
of  fratricidal  struggle,  is  there  one  who  does 
not  seek  expression  in  fellow-service.  Even 
under  the  present  regime,  when  the  test 
of  a  man's  success  is  so  commonly  held 
to  be  the  amount  of  money  he  can  amass, 
thousands  of  men  give  over  their  chance 
of  winning  pecuniary  rewards  in  order  to 
devote  themselves  to  a  social  ideal.  We 
see  this  in  the  labor  and  social  movements 
of  all  countries,  in  the  revolutionary  move- 
ment in  Russia,  the  co-operative  movement 
in  England  and  Belgium,  and  often  in 
government  service.  An  impulse  like  this, 
appearing  even  under  the  unfavorable  con- 
ditions of  the  present  regime,  could  not  but 

16  [  241  ] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

flower  under  Socialism — under  a  system 
wherein  the  common  good  rather  than  the 
individual  good  would  be  the  accepted  ideal. 
The  common  man  is  made  of  the  same  clay 
as  is  the  exceptional  man;  though  his  facul- 
ties are  less  intense,  and  his  skill  is  less 
plastic,  his  nature  is  the  same;  and  it  needs 
only  the  humanizing  of  the  conditions  of 
his  employment  to  cause  him  to  give  to  his 
simple  tasks  like  energies  and  impulses. 

And  how  about  production  in  the  mass? 
Granted,  for  the  moment,  that  men  would 
work  under  this  visionary  scheme  of  things, 
how  much  would  they  work  and  with  what 
result?  For  surely  the  sum  of  production 
must  be  greater  than  now  if  the  increased 
comforts  promised  by  the  Socialist  leaders 
are  to  flow  to  all.  With  the  present  stimuli 
to  exertion  in  large  part  removed,  would 
the  new  stimuli  more  than  make  up  the 
deficit?  Look  at  the  clerks  in  our  public 
offices.  Are  these  a  sample  of  what  we 
may  expect  under  the  co-operative  com- 
monwealth ? 

You  skeptics  and  doubters  make  over- 

I  2421 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

much  of  this  matter,  do  you  not?  To 
many  of  you  it  has  become  the  last  refuge 
after  all  your  other  positions  have  been 
driven  in.  We  Socialists,  on  the  other  hand, 
find  it  exceedingly  difficult  to  regard  the 
problem  seriously.  For,  in  the  first  place, 
processes  already  at  work  indicate  the 
means  of  a  vast  augmentation  of  production. 
The  trust,  in  its  anticipation  of  the  Socialist 
state,  steadily  points  the  way.  The  material 
power  of  production  is  increasing  enormously 
all  the  time.  Work  is  being  concentrated 
in  the  larger  and  better  factories,  improved 
methods  are  being  introduced,  competition 
and  the  duplication  of  products  are  being 
curtailed,  and  waste  is  to  some  extent 
being  eliminated.  Who  can  say  to  what 
ends  these  processes  may  not  be  carried 
when  the  motive  that  governs  will  be  the 
common  good  rather  than  the  advantage 
of  a  few  ?  When  not  merely  such  improved 
processes  as  happen  to  be  immediately 
profitable  to  particular  interests,  but  all 
possible  improved  processes,  are  introduced ; 
when  not  merely  a  few,  but  all,  of  the  com- 

[243] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

petitive  wastes  are  abolished;  when  the 
production  of  fraudulent  and  luxurious  and 
useless  commodities  is  discontinued,  and 
production  is  carried  on  with  an  eye  single  to 
the  needs  of  mankind  ? 

You  draw  an  erroneous  analogy  between 
co-operative  workers  under  Socialism  and 
municipal  and  state  and  federal  employes 
under  capitalism.  No  doubt  many  of  the 
latter  are  lazy  and  inefficient,  and  some 
of  them  are  dishonest.  Though  public  ser- 
vants, they  are  a  product  of  the  competitive 
strife  for  personal  advantage,  and  they  are 
governed,  as  a  rule,  by  its  standards;  they 
get  their  appointments  largely  as  political 
favors;  and  even  when  appointed  through 
the  civil  service  examinations,  there  is  little 
or  nothing  to  cause  them  to  look  upon  pub- 
lic service  as  different  from  private  service. 
As  a  rule,  the  conditions  about  them  cause 
them  to  see  in  government  just  what  a 
franchise-grabber  or  a  contractor  or  a  dealer 
sees  in  it — an  alien  organization  out  of 
which  they  can  extract  something  of  advan- 
tage to  themselves.     Yet  though  this  is  a 

[244] 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

rule,  it  has  its  notable  exceptions;  for  a 
high  sense  of  social  service  is  not  infre- 
quently found  among  public  employes. 
And  that  such  a  sense  should  develop  in  any 
case  under  the  conditions  is  a  happy  augury 
for  Socialism — a  promise  of  the  spirit  that 
will  govern  men  when  partnership  in  pos- 
session creates  in  all  of  them  a  sense  of 
social  obligation. 

Do  you  stop  to  consider,  when  nursing 
your  apprehension  of  a  Socialist  lack  of 
production,  the  prevalent  idleness  of  mil- 
lions of  men  ?  They  are  willing  to  produce 
wealth  if  only  the  opportunity  is  given  them. 
But  capitalism  will  not  and  cannot  assume 
the  task  of  providing  them  the  opportunity. 
The  yearly  loss  in  the  volume  of  production 
due  to  unemployment  is  enormous.  The 
census  figures  for  1900  show  that  3,177,753 
persons  were  idle  for  from  1  to  3  months, 
2,554,925  for  from  4  to  6  months,  and 
736,286  for  from  7  to  12  months.  This 
frightful  total  of  6,468,964  persons  is  some- 
what more  than  one-fifth  of  the  total  of 
gainfully   occupied   persons  for  that  year. 

[245] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

Under  a  rational  system  of  industry  each 
of  these  persons  might  have  produced  four 
or  five  times  the  value  of  his  maintenance. 
Socialism  would  guarantee  opportunities 
for  work  for  everybody.  The  Socialist  ad- 
ministration that  could  not  keep  that  pledge 
would  be  compelled  to  give  way  to  another 
that  could.  Would  not  setting  these  millions 
to  work  increase  the  sum  of  production  ? 

Is  it  not  also  to  be  supposed  that  men  will 
produce  in  greater  volume  and  in  better 
value  when  the  products  are  their  own  than 
when  the  products  are  another's?  Is  it 
not,  in  the  words  of  the  Rev.  Franklin  M. 
Sprague,  "inherently  probable  that  pro- 
duction would  be  vastly  greater  when  men 
assisted  and  encouraged  each  other  than 
when  they  opposed  each  other?"  With 
improved  conditions  in  the  work-places, 
with  greater  immunity  from  wounds  and 
infection,  with  better  nourishment,  sturdier 
health,  a  greater  satisfaction  with  life  and 
a  higher  hope  for  the  future,  is  the  belief 
altogether  visionary  that  the  workers  would 
do    more    and    better    work?     Is    it    quite 

[246]      • 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

visionary,  either,  to  believe  that  in  the 
removal  of  the  social  stigma  from  toil;  in 
the  elimination  of  the  cause  for  the  work- 
man's sense  of  indignity  and  wrong  in  the 
forcible  taking  of  the  products  of  his  toil; 
in  the  mutual  watchfulness,  mutual  criti- 
cism and  mutual  emulation  inseparable 
from  co-operative  labor  and  in  the  spontane- 
ous growth  of  standards  of  social  usefulness 
and  devotion — that  in  and  under  this  con- 
dition men  will  strive  more  earnestly  and 
fruitfully  than  they  do  to-day?  It  is  not 
a  visionary  belief.  It  is  a  logical  expecta- 
tion. 

There  is  another  objection  which  you 
men  of  little  faith  bring  against  Socialism. 
That  is,  that  the  Socialist  promise  of  an 
abolition  of  the  wage- system  and  of  the 
exploitation  of  labor  cannot  be  fulfilled. 
Socialism  does  indeed  promise  the  aboli- 
tion of  wages  and  the  system  under  which 
they  are  paid;  but  it  does  not  promise  an 
abolition  of  payments  for  work  done.  The 
word  "wages"  has  to  Socialists  a  meaning 
specifically  related  to  capitalism;  wages  are 

[247] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

that  fraction  of  the  value  produced  by  the 
worker  which  is  left  in  his  possession  after 
the  machine-owner  has  taken  what  he  can 
for  the  use  of  his  machine.  Unfortunately, 
there  is  no  word  to  designate  what  Social- 
ists mean  by  the  individual  worker's  recom- 
pense under  Socialism.  It  might  be  called 
a  quota  or  a  share  or  a  labor-dividend.  It 
is,  in  fact,  a  dividend  of  the  joint  product 
of  all  labor,  less  the  necessary  cost  of  ad- 
ministration. Very  likely,  payments  will  be 
made  as  wages  are  now  paid;  but  though 
the  form  will  be  similar,  the  substance  will 
be  entirely  different. 

Socialism  does  indeed  also  promise  the 
definite  ending  of  the  exploitation  of  labor; 
but  the  promise  does  not  mean  that 
the  worker  will  get  for  his  individual  use 
the  full  product  of  his  toil.  The  setting 
apart  of  wealth  for  the  production  of  new 
wealth,  the  costs  of  administration,  and  the 
costs  of  all  those  social  services  to  which 
civilized  mankind  is  becoming  accustomed, 
will  subtract  from  this  dividend.  But  this 
subtraction  is  not  exploitation.     In  the  na- 

[248] 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

tion's  collective  capital,  if  we  may  use  that 
term  for  a  thing  so  different  from  what  we 
know  as  capital  to-day,  the  workers  will 
be  equal  partners;  and  they  will  be  equal 
sharers  in  all  those  benefits  which  flow  from 
the  institutions  and  social  services  which 
mankind  has  gradually  developed.  In  other 
words,  the  share  of  the  product  that  is  to- 
day withheld  from  the  workers  by  the  charge 
which  capital  makes  for  itself,  is  an  ex- 
ploitation by  private  persons  for  their  own 
benefit;  what  is  withheld  from  the  workers 
under  Socialism  is  an  addition  to  the  com- 
mon wealth,  in  which  every  human  being 
is  an  equal  sharer. 

And  now  a  brief  word  for  liberty.  To 
hear  you  speak  of  it  as  you  sometimes  do, 
one  might  suppose  that  all  men  now  had 
this  blessing,  and  that  certain  persons  known 
as  Socialists  proposed  to  take  it  away  from 
them.  Who  in  truth  has  it  now?  Pos- 
sibly, in  Falstaff's  words,  "he  that  died  o' 
Wednesday";  for  certainly  no  other  has 
it — not  even  Mr.  Rockefeller  or  Nicholas  II. 
or  Mr.  Roosevelt.     There  is  not  a  single 

[249] 


SOCIALISM  AND   SUCCESS 

industrial  act  of  any  individual  nor  even  an 
expression  of  opinion,  that  is  not  conditioned 
and  bound  by  many  factors.  This  un- 
attainable abstraction  has  been  differently 
defined  by  every  generation  of  men.  The 
generation  in  which  Socialist  thought  has 
permeated  every  branch  of  learning  dis- 
misses as  illusory  the  medieval  notion — 
though  still  held  by  anarchists  and  orthodox 
economists — of  liberty  as  the  absence  of 
governmental  restraint.  Liberty  so  defined 
is  a  negation.  Real  liberty,  in  the  words 
of  T.  H.  Green,  is  a  "positive  power  or 
capacity"  which  each  man  exercises  or  holds 
"through  the  help  or  security  given  him 
by  his  fellow-men,  and  which  he  in  turn 
helps  to  secure  for  them."  The  legal  liberty 
to  do  things  which  economic  conditions 
absolutely  prohibit  gives  a  word  of  promise 
to  the  ear  only  to  break  it  to  the  hope.  It 
is  a  liberty  in  phrase,  but  a  subjection  in 
substance.  The  liberty  for  which  men  now 
strive  is  a  mutually  exercised  and  mutually 
restrained  power  to  do.  You  speak  of  the 
Socialists  as  though  they  were  deliberately 

[250] 


SKEPTICS  AND  DOUBTERS 

forging  shackles  for  their  own  limbs.  Why, 
these  men  and  women  love  liberty  as  much 
as  you  do.  But  they  have  learned  the 
hollowness  of  the  medieval  notion  of  liberty, 
and  in  its  stead  they  have  conceived  a  notion 
of  liberty  as  a  power  for  social  achieve- 
ment. The  ordered  restraints  of  Socialism 
will  endow  mankind  with  a  liberty  which  it 
has  never  before  known. 

In  these  brief  considerations,  imperfectly 
set  forth,  there  may  be  little  or  nothing  to 
shake  your  skepticism,  or  to  awaken  a 
willingness  to  reopen  your  inquiry.  If  so, 
so  be  it.  Yet  in  spite  of  doubt  and  hesitancy 
and  antagonism,  the  mighty  phenomenon 
that  in  the  end  will  resolve  all  doubts  is 
every  day  more  evident.  That  is  the  inter- 
national Socialist  movement.  It  is  idle  to 
say  that  for  this  or  that  theoretical  reason 
Socialism  is  impracticable,  just  as  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ago  it  was  idle  to  say  that 
democracy  was  impracticable.  Socialism,  in 
its  practical  form,  is  a  world-wide  move- 
ment for  industrial  democracy;  in  other 
words,   it   is   a   carrying   forward   of   that 

[251] 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUCCESS 

movement  which  during  the  last  century 
transferred  political  power  from  kings  and 
nobles  to  elected  representatives  of  the 
people — a  carrying  forward  of  that  move- 
ment to  the  realm  of  industry.  Doubtless 
this  movement  has  made  many  mistakes, 
doubtless  its  leaders  have  made  wrong 
postulates,  wrong  deductions  from  particu- 
lar sets  of  facts.  But  the  movement  itself, 
in  spite  of  blunders  and  defeats,  goes  on 
toward  its  goal.  The  certainty  of  its  ulti- 
mate triumph  lies  in  the  inexorable  processes 
of  economic  evolution,  and  in  the  will  of 
man,  which  though  shaped  and  directed 
by  its  material  environment,  yet  constantly 
reacts  upon  that  environment  and  molds  it 
to  the  shape  of  the  ideal. 


[252] 


BERNARD  SHAW 
AS  ARTIST-PHILOSOPHER 

by  RENEE  M.  DEACON 

Cloth.     16mo.     $1.00  net.     Postage  10  cents 

***  A  brief  account  of  the  Shavian  philosophy,  in  which 
the  main  trend  of  Bernard  Shaw's  thought  is  clearly  indicated, 
and  his  attitude  toward  life  is  revealed. 

*#*  "Perhaps  the  best  examination  of  Bernard  Shaw 
that  has  been  published  in  English." — Dundee  Advertiser. 

"Full  of  quick  and  suggestive  ideas.  Many  will  gain  a 
new  and  perhaps  a  truer  view  of  Shaw,  his  work  and  his  in- 
tentions, through  this  thoughtful  work." 

— Chicago  Record-Herald. 


SOCIALISM  AND  SUPERIOR  BRAINS 
by  BERNARD  SHAW 

Cloth.     16mo.     75  cents  net.     Postage  10  cents 

Portrait  frontispiece  by  the  author.      A   new   book  by 
Bernard  Shaw,  dealing  with  the  following  topics  : 
The  Able  Author. 
The  Able  Inventor. 
Ability  at  Supply-and-Demand  Prices. 
The  Ability  that  Gives  Value  for  Money. 
Waste  of  Ability  and  Inflation  of  Its  Prices  by 

the  Rich. 
Artificial  Rent  of  Ability. 
Artificial  Ability. 
How  Little  Really  Goes  to  Ability,  etc.,  etc. 

Written  with  that  matchless  virility  for  which  Mr.  Shaw 
is  so  famous.  Socialism  has  never  had,  and  probably  never 
will  have,  a  better  and  abler  exponent  and  defender." 

— Dundee  Advertiser. 


REBEL   WOMEN 

BY 

EVELYN    SHARP 

Cloth.      16mo.      $1. 00  net.      Postage  10  cents 

A  clever,  brilliantly  interesting  and  amusing  series  of 
stories  and  sketches  illustrative  of  the  modern  woman's  move- 
ment, by  one  of  its  best-known  writers,  putting  the  suffragette 
case  in  a  fresh  and  convincing  manner. 

A  Timely  Book  on  the  Woman  Question  of  the  Day 

CONTENTS: 

The  Woman  at  the  Gate 

To  Prison  While  the  Sun  Shines 

Shaking  Hands  with  the  Middle  Ages 

Filling  the  War  Chest 

The  Conversion  of  Penelope's  Mother 

At  a  Street  Corner 

The  Crank  of  All  Ages 

Patrolling  the  Gutter 

The  Black  Spot  of  the  Constituency 

"Votes  for  Women — Forward!" 

The  Person  Who  Cannot  Escape 

The  Daughter  Who  Stays  at  Home 

The  Game  that  Wasn't  Cricket 


MODERN    WOMAN     AND    HOW    TO 
MANAGE  HER 

BY 

WALTER  M.  GALLICHAN 

Cloth.    12mo.    $1.50  net.    Postage  10  cents 

***"It  is  from  the  man's  point  of  view,  of  course — and  Mr. 
Gallichan  has  done  it  well  and  interestingly.  .  .  .  Every  husband 
should  get  this  book — and  every  wife  with  any  common  sense  at 
all.  " — The  Bookman  (London). 

SOME  OF  THE  TOPICS  DISCUSSED 

The  Duel  in  Love 

The  War  in  Wedlock 

The  Battle  in  Politics 

The  Strife  in  Breadwinning 

The  Feud  in  the  Family,  etc. 

"  A  book  for  a  host  of  men  to  read,  and  one  that  a  number  of  them 
will  chuckle  heartily  over.  An  education  in  itself  for  almost  all 
men,  and,  we  would  say,  the  modern  woman." — Tourist  Magazine. 

"  A  keen,  clear-eytd  study  of  many  important  questions  relating  to 
women  and,  therefore,  to  the  life  of  to-day  and  the  life  of  the  future." 
— Book  News  Monthly. 

"Has  many  unusual  features  and  is  never  dull." 

— Neiu  Orleans  Picayune. 

" Should  be  in  every  household." — Boston  Herald. 

"Very  amusing." — The  Smart  Set. 

"A  volume  that  will  stimulate  thought  and  provide  discussion.  It 
is  never  dull. ' ' — San  Francisco  Bulletin. 


GILBERT  K.  CHESTERTON 

"Always  entertaining.  " — Neiv  York  Evening  Sun. 
"Always  original.  "—Chicago  Tribune. 

Heretics  12mo.     $1.50  net.     Postage  12  cents 

'*  His  thinking  is  as  sane  as  his  language  is  brilliant." 

— Chicago  Record- Herald. 

Orthodoxy.     Uniform  with  "  Heretics.' ' 

12mo.     $1.50  net.     Postage  12  cents 
"A  work  of  genius." — Chicago  Evening  Post. 

All  Things  Considered 

Cloth.      12mo.     $1.50  net.      Postage  12  cents 

"Full  of  the  author's  abundant  vitality,  wit  and  unflinching  opti- 
mism."— Book  News. 

George  Bernard  Shaw.    A  Biography 

Cloth.      12mo.     $1.50  net.      Postage  12  cents 

"It  is  a  facinating  portrait  study  and  I  am  proud  to  have  been  the 
painter's  model." — George  Bernard  Shaw  in  The  Nation  (London). 

The   Napoleon  of  Notting  Hill.     A  Romance.     With 
Illustrations  by  Graham  Robertson 

Cloth.     12mo.      $1.50 

1  *  A  brilliant  piece  of  satire,  gemmed  with  ingenious  paradox. 
Every  page  is  pregnant  with  vitality. ' ' — Boston  Herald. 

The  Ball  and  the  Cross  Cloth.    12mo.    $1.50 

"The  most  strikingly  original  novel  of  the  present  season.  It  is 
studded  with  intellectual  brilliants.  Its  satire  is  keener  than  that  of 
Bernard  Shaw.  Behind  all  this  foolery  there  shines  the  light  of 
Truth.  A  brilliant  piece  of  satire — a  gem  that  sparkles  from  any 
point  of  view  the  reader  may  choose  to  regard  it." 

— San  Francisco  Bulletin. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


lOAug'5  )M 


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LOAN  DEPT. 


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